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AI is not bad for the environment in comparison with many other regular activities. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/controversial@sh.itjust.works
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People on Lemmy love to cry AI IS BURNING THE PLANNET but have they ever really looked at the numbers?

  • 1 kg Beef = 60kg CO2 - source
  • 1000km Return flight = 314kg CO2 - source
  • 1 Bitcoin transaction = 645kg of CO2 - source
  • 1000 AI prompts = 3kg of CO2 - source including training

I'm a strong advocate for privacy, and I myself am Anti generative AI in many ways, but can we please stop shouting that AI IS BRUNING THE PLANNET, it weakens our position to push back at actual issues with AI like privacy.

Here is a detailed breakdown debunking that AI is destroying the planet: https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversations-about

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[–] 9 points 1 year ago* (6 children)

Hmm, after running an LLM locally I'm not too surprised about low energy use while querying (but even then, 3Wh is very low, I was getting like 5 Wh per query while running DeepSeek locally, that said datacenter GPUs will be more efficient for this). But also, this doesn't go into great depths about the impact of training.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It doesn't go into the impact of training, because that isn't what these AI-phobes complain about.

    Even just using it will result in calling it "slop" and complaining about its energy usage.

    If they complained about the training, they would have a point. But they don't. They complain about anything of AI. Even if it has revolutionized things like protein folding in medicine.

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  • [–] [S] -1 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Check the sources, that does account for training.

    Even if we went with 10wh, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to other lifestyle choices we make

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    Check the sources, that does account for training.

    The 3Wh figure is pretty much "pulled out of the ass". Looking at other sources listed, it does seem true that similar-sized models use ~2-3Wh per query, amortized training included. So yeah I concede the point.

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