It’s a self solving problem. As soon as people pay the actual cost of AI, usage will drop automatically. It’s just because investors are willing to burn money inflating the bubble is the resaon AI is being used as much as it is.
Because you are using exponentially more energy than you did before AI. And all for something that at best could have been made without AI, and at worst is completely frivolous and useless.
And this at a point in human history where we desperately need to cut down on energy usage.
I knew we were truly fucked the moment I realized that even non-AI content on the internet is affected negatively by AI. Take this comment I’m typing out right now. I’m not using AI for it, but the content of what I’m writing is based on experiences I have had with AI - nothing is purely human made anymore.
At one point I had an issue with a tool and searched for it on the web and found someone who looked like a real person describing a similar-ish issue. They mentioned trying a setting but it didn’t work for them. I thought “that setting seems to be what I need”. I searched for that setting on the web and also in the codebase of that tool - zero matches. It was made up. I didn’t use any AI myself, but I still wasted time with an AI hallucination.
Now every time I find something on the web I have to do additional searches to see how many other sources corroborate the information I get from any result. And eventually this too will be pointless.
Not saying you’re not correct but I keep hearing, what I take to be at least slight overstatements, of how much environmental impact is caused by agentic ai but is there some good source where I can red up on exactly how much? While ”Plastic nic nacs that flood our oceans and landfills, times a million” is surely a good ballpark I’d like to narrow it down a bit
People see this and think “AI is just generating a bunch of useless slop.”
What they need to be thinking about is how much of our environment was destroyed to produce this useless slop.
Like, imagine all of those bullshit cheap plastic nic nacs that flood our oceans and landfills, times a million.
Exactly this. It is not that AI generates meaningless slop, it also destroys the environment and increases costs to populations near data centers…
Dont forget the decimated value of the houses nearby.
From a stupidly high price like 1.3million to just horrible loss values like 1.25 million.
They’re not building these datacenters near million dollar homes. It’s the average person who suffers.
Average homes cost that much now.
Not in the vast majority of the country, no. They do not.
Exactly my point. It’s sort parallel rather than pro or against.
It’s a self solving problem. As soon as people pay the actual cost of AI, usage will drop automatically. It’s just because investors are willing to burn money inflating the bubble is the resaon AI is being used as much as it is.
I’m using Opencode and the free Deepseek in it pretty much daily, how is this destroying the environment and increasing costs to other people?
It feels like there’s a push on the internet against AI because it’s a largely western product.
Look up datacenter water usage and utility pricing - not to mention so many studies showing using AI makes you dumb and unable to think critically.
Because you are using exponentially more energy than you did before AI. And all for something that at best could have been made without AI, and at worst is completely frivolous and useless.
And this at a point in human history where we desperately need to cut down on energy usage.
I knew we were truly fucked the moment I realized that even non-AI content on the internet is affected negatively by AI. Take this comment I’m typing out right now. I’m not using AI for it, but the content of what I’m writing is based on experiences I have had with AI - nothing is purely human made anymore.
At one point I had an issue with a tool and searched for it on the web and found someone who looked like a real person describing a similar-ish issue. They mentioned trying a setting but it didn’t work for them. I thought “that setting seems to be what I need”. I searched for that setting on the web and also in the codebase of that tool - zero matches. It was made up. I didn’t use any AI myself, but I still wasted time with an AI hallucination.
Now every time I find something on the web I have to do additional searches to see how many other sources corroborate the information I get from any result. And eventually this too will be pointless.
And then it gets used as training data.
More like, imagine all the aquaphors drained dry.
Not to be that guy, but aquifers.
Inference is about as cheap as playing a videogame.
There’s certainly a lot of externalities to AI and enviro impact is absolutely one of them but this isn’t a great point for it.
I play vidya gaem ⏩ I have a pleasant time
AI does things ⏩ …?
Not saying you’re not correct but I keep hearing, what I take to be at least slight overstatements, of how much environmental impact is caused by agentic ai but is there some good source where I can red up on exactly how much? While ”Plastic nic nacs that flood our oceans and landfills, times a million” is surely a good ballpark I’d like to narrow it down a bit