you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[+] 16 points 4 months ago* (61 children)
  • [–] 46 points 4 months ago (52 children)

    Datacenters? Yes, to an extent. They enable things like the modern internet, public goods like Wikipedia, etc.

    AI datacenters? No.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 52 child comments
  • [–] 19 points 4 months ago (51 children)

    70% of the modern internet is bots botting for bots

    i’ll take the drinking water

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 51 child comments
  • [+] -14 points 4 months ago (50 children)

    The internet isn’t taking your drinking water

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 50 child comments
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (49 children)

    5 years ago sure

    how do you think ai being used today? most ai isnt locally hosted

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 49 child comments
  • [+] -12 points 4 months ago* (48 children)

    The internet and AI are two different things.

    The internet wasn’t taking your drinking water 5 years ago and it’s not taking it today.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 48 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (41 children)

    lol the internet is 70% bot traffic today

    wanna bet more and more of that is ai driven?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 41 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (23 children)

    The things using the internet is irrelevant. The fact remains that the internet itself is not taking your drinking water

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 23 child comments
  • [–] -1 points 4 months ago (22 children)

    i’m always amazed how it can be so hard for some people to think beyond whatever is immediately in their face

    70% of the internet traffic is the fucking internet

    just because you don’t like that doesn't matter

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 22 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago* (21 children)

    Internet traffic is not the internet. Thats like saying cars and trucks are the highway. I can’t believe I have to dumb this down for you, but here goes: T highway is that asphalt thing that sits on the ground between two places, right? And cars and trucks are the things you drive on the highway. So like, in terms of emissions, the highway isn’t producing all those nasty emissions, the cars and trucks are. So if you don’t like those nasty emissions, you can regular the cars and trucks, but the highway isn’t at fault. You could reduce the emissions of the vehicles, replace the cars with more efficient busses, you could even just ride bikes on the highway if you really wanted to. But all these things are separate from the highway itself, see?

    Just because you don’t understand how any of this works doesn’t change the fact of the matter which is that the internet is not taking your drinking water.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 21 child comments
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (5 children)

    It’s not semantics, the context of this entire thread is about the difference in ecological impact of two entirely different and unrelated technologies. This isn’t a philosophical debate. Life must be so difficult for you if you can’t ever see the forest for the trees because you can’t see things as they are.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    You're putting a lot of effort into deflecting from the problem. You're pretending to be upset about bot traffic, but instead of saying "we need to regulate AI or put limits on its development or halt all future AI builds or shut down the ones that already exist" you're just doubling down that "No, the internet is the problem. Kill the internet. Pay no attention to the AI datacenters behind the curtain, just shut down the internet."

    It's like a doctor says "You have an infection" so the patient asks if the doctor is going to give him antibiotics to kill the infection and the doctor goes "NO, DUMBASS! DID YOU NOT HEAR ME? YOU HAVE AN INFECTION. BACTERIA IS TRAVELING THROUGH YOUR BLOODSTREAM. WE ARE GOING TO EUTHANIZE YOU! GOD, HOW STUPID ARE YOU? CAN YOU NOT SEE THE REALITY THAT THERE IS BACTERIA IN YOUR BODY AND WE MUST PUT YOU DOWN???? I'M NOT HERE TO ARGUE ABOUT SEMANTICS!!!!!"

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    More red herrings from you that I'm not going to engage with. You can't just throw out "Oh yeah? Well cancer is bad, gotcha!" when you're losing an argument about health insurance.

    I'm not putting any arguments in your mouth. This is how this chain started:

    You wonder, do data centers do any good at all? Some using tons of pure drinkable water is also bad.

    Datacenters? Yes, to an extent. They enable things like the modern internet, public goods like Wikipedia, etc.

    AI datacenters? No.

    70% of the modern internet is bots botting for bots

    i’ll take the drinking water

    Someone literally pointed out the nuance of the situation, that not all datacenters are for AI and some provide public goods that we all rely on. And you were basically like "No, the internet is full of bots. Shut it all down!"

    No one here is arguing for AI datacenters. We're saying not all datacenters are AI, and that's factually true but you can't seem to get it through your head.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (4 children)

    This isn't about semantics, you're just a dumbass.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah, exactly. Not a single thought in your brain.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] -1 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    By your own definition, then AI is now the internet. Prompts and outputs are the cars and trucks, while the data centers and models are the highway. 70% of the internet is running on data centers and models. What makes more of something, 30% or 70%?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago

    Not even. The internet is the highway. The datacenters running the internet are the department of transportation. Average internet users are the compact hybrids, EVs, and cyclists who use the road. Prompts and outputs are the couriers driving various kinds of vehicles. AI datacenters are the giant trucks with smokestacks that smokescreen all the old grannies behind them.

    The prompts and outputs traveling over the internet consume a negligible amount of energy. The bulk of it is consumed by training giant LLMs with hundreds of billions of parameters. A lesser portion is consumed by the inferencing those models do to produce outputs, which is done at the AI datacenters, and not what travels over the internet via internet datacenters.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (4 children)

    You’ve misunderstood. AI datacenters are not the highway. Prompts and Outputs are the cars and trucks, the AI data centers are the factories making the cars. The highway is datacenters and transmission media that do not house AI and do not require the immense cooling or power that the AI datacenters use. The highway and the things on the highway are two entirely decoupled things.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    Incorrect. Let me help you out here:

    Human transportation in the abstract is computer networking in the abstract.

    The highway is the internet, the current physical implementation of the computer networking transportation system we call The Internet.

    You can go into minute detail on what the cars and trucks are, horse drawn carriages, people etc, but ultimately, the internet is the highway. It is separate from and fundamentally not responsible for what you choose to put on it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    my whole fucking point is that roads in the US didn't start with highways

    highways in the US came about because of American car culture and fossil fuel policy

    so American cars are American highways as far as how intertwined they are, this idea is so old it is literally a plot point in fucking Roger Rabbit

    the internet today isn't the internet 5 years ago, you the end personal user is no longer the focus of the infrastructure in the same way no one gives a shit about the horse drawn buggy

    the internet we have now is designed for bots, you can thank google and meta and the like

    it has accelerated to ludicrous speeds this year if you are paying attention and dead internet theory already had shit pegged as high as in the 60s before the ai boom

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (16 children)

    You're missing the point so hard it's not even funny.

    The datacenters hosting the internet are not the same datacenters hosting AI.

    The ones hosting AI are the problem. Eliminate those, and the ones hosting the internet are fine (although could still convert to greener practices like on-site solar and closed-loop/greywater cooling systems, etc.).

    Eliminate the internet datacenters and the AI corps are still going to destroy the environment, you just won't have access to wikipedia or the fediverse.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 16 child comments
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    They were being nice, but since you insist on persisting in your willfull ignorance: you're a fucking idiot who does not understand how the internet works nor how data centers are involved with it. Your straw man argument that 70% of the internet are bots is sourced by your ass, from whence you pulled it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (5 children)

    Wow, you really are braindead. No one here is arguing against there being an enormous amount of bot traffic. Learn to interpret what you read.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    You're getting ratioed harder than me if you really wanna bring that up

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (6 children)

    I'm actually telling the facts and you're the one being detached from reality, but normally people like you are "not interested in hearing about it" anyway, so I'm honestly not surprised you say that.

    I'm done arguing with you for the same reason I don't debate climate change deniers.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    what facts?

    there are literally multiple reports on how the majority of internet traffic is bots

    what a strange hill to die on

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (4 children)

    I never said anything about the relative proportion if internet traffic that is or isn't bots. Does your only argument require a severe misrepresentation of what anyone else is saying?

    The fact is that the datacenters that have been rapidly accelerating the demise of the planet and its climate over the last 5-6 years are specifically AI datacenters. Getting rid of those, completely frivolous and unnecessary as they are, will go a long way to reducing the severity human-induced climate change.

    Getting rid of the datacenters that make the internet possible would be negligible compared to that. But I'm just restating what I've already said at this point, because you're apparently either a troll or incapable of reading and understanding. Maybe both.

    Taking away the internet from the billions of humans who use it just because it's flooded with bot traffic is a really stupid idea, when you could instead get rid of the datacenters that make the bots possible. The vast majority of compute operating these bots is happening at the bot-side of the internet, not at the datacenters running the internet. The actual amount of energy/compute used for that web traffic to travel from client to server is tiny compared to what's consumed at the bot farms.

    What you're proposing is more akin to tearing up the highways in order to prevent drug trafficking. It doesn't solve the problem you're pretending to want to address, it's just a red herring that makes things worse for everyone else.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    no you just live in this make believe land from 5 years ago

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    You're the one living in make-believe land. You haven't even attempted to engage with a single thing I've said.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] -1 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    They WERE 2 different things, not anymore.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    No they are still two very different things.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Are you trying to suggest that foss projects, small websites, and digital media will somehow benefit from destroying the internet?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    You're the one who's saying we should get rid of all the datacenters, not just AI. That includes the ones that enable the internet. You think that's not the same thing as destroying the internet?

    Literally, it's what your first comment was about. It's not a strawman. This entire comment chain is about exactly that! People telling you it's a bad take, and you doubling down and being smug about being wrong.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Data centers have been around forever. Supercomputers and other large racks of computer hardware have been housed in them for decades. They have done a lot of good for research.

    Even if you didn’t have AWS and the like modern sites/tech products need a lot more hardware than your random desktop computer to work. And that needs to be housed somewhere.

    The AI ones they’re trying to build now to try and stack tech feudal territory? Probably not. I don’t think the demand is gonna be there long term.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Even if you didn’t have AWS and the like modern sites/tech products need a lot more hardware than your random desktop computer to work. And that needs to be housed somewhere.

    They really don't, everything is just hideously inefficient these days.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    They really don't, everything is just hideously inefficient these days.

    Because for ~30 years hardware, microchips, memory, and storage kept improving faster than programming best practices. As a result we have bloated applications with poor memory management. In the coming hardware famines I hope to see this trend reverse course.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    You see, investors sincerely believe that AI has value and more AI has more value. How do you create more AI? More data centers!

    So now you have several hundred multimillionaires and billionaires, with almost zero understanding of what AI is, what it's useful for and what it's not useful for, but they believe with all their heart , more data centers makes wealth go up.

    Now they are buying up land, with money they borrowed, to build data centers, with hardware that hasn't been manufactured yet all to potentially realize financial gains that are backed by nothing but speculation and emotion.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    This is what happens when you give the market fomo. Invent something magical that you don’t understand the inner workings of (a literal mechanical Turk).

    The problem was that after the pandemic and crypto, too many investors were itching for a gold rush that would simply just replace the disgusting working class. I mean, they were already but that shit made them extra hungry.

  • source
  • parent