Ai data centres used about 0.5% of global electricity production last year. Electricity production is about 26,000 TWh annually, versus total energy production of 185 TWh annually, so AI was about 0.07% of all energy consumption. Energy production causes the bulk of greenhouse emissions: 73.2%, putting AI on 0.05% (this is unfair to AI, because electricity is cleaner than the average energy production which includes just burning gas for heat).
A large TV might consume about 100W while on, so 100Wh to watch for an hour. To reach the same consumption with AI, you’d need to run about 55 expensive (the upper estimate I found was 6700J - I assume this means long coding answers, research or image generation) chatgpt queries.
Personally I think it unlikely that someone would reach that 1 prompt per minute at that expensive estimate, so all yourself: is AI really “burning entire areas” compared to just watching TV?
It all well and good comparing data centre energy usage with global production. But you miss out the important reality that a good chunk of the data centres running today and in the near future are using fossil fuel power on-site, without a grid connection, which is so much worse.
Be honest. Even if every single data centre did that, would it worse enough to really change the picture? It’s still going to be less than paper production by a long way for a long while.
You’re fighting a losing battle here, some people just have decided that AI is bad no matter what. There are quite many here on lemmy, which is a shame because there are good and bad sides about AI, but IMO it for sure is here to stay, so discussions would be interesting, again IMO.
AI is bad, but it’s bizarre to point to its energy usage, out of all things. It’s really missing the forest for the trees. As top commenter’s data shows, even an hour of gaming on a gaming PC is so much worse (considering a 650W PSU, which is 6.5 times the TV example).
However there is sharp growth in demand being predicted and I don’t see any sign of humanity trading in some other power usage to get their data center power allocation. Even if we’re are greening the grid it is all for nothing if the extra capacity has to be filled in by more fossil fuels.
And “AI” idiots who insist on burning entire areas just to generate shrimp Jesus memes
And the fascist oligarchs. Maybe lock em in submarines and drown the lot of em.
We don’t need a covid-style lockdown to do that. Just saying.
Ai data centres used about 0.5% of global electricity production last year. Electricity production is about 26,000 TWh annually, versus total energy production of 185 TWh annually, so AI was about 0.07% of all energy consumption. Energy production causes the bulk of greenhouse emissions: 73.2%, putting AI on 0.05% (this is unfair to AI, because electricity is cleaner than the average energy production which includes just burning gas for heat).
In comparison, trying to find something small on https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector my favourite comparison is that energy for making paper consumes more than 10x as much as does AI.
A large TV might consume about 100W while on, so 100Wh to watch for an hour. To reach the same consumption with AI, you’d need to run about 55 expensive (the upper estimate I found was 6700J - I assume this means long coding answers, research or image generation) chatgpt queries.
Personally I think it unlikely that someone would reach that 1 prompt per minute at that expensive estimate, so all yourself: is AI really “burning entire areas” compared to just watching TV?
It has it’s problems but this is a moral panic.
It all well and good comparing data centre energy usage with global production. But you miss out the important reality that a good chunk of the data centres running today and in the near future are using fossil fuel power on-site, without a grid connection, which is so much worse.
Be honest. Even if every single data centre did that, would it worse enough to really change the picture? It’s still going to be less than paper production by a long way for a long while.
You’re fighting a losing battle here, some people just have decided that AI is bad no matter what. There are quite many here on lemmy, which is a shame because there are good and bad sides about AI, but IMO it for sure is here to stay, so discussions would be interesting, again IMO.
AI is bad, but it’s bizarre to point to its energy usage, out of all things. It’s really missing the forest for the trees. As top commenter’s data shows, even an hour of gaming on a gaming PC is so much worse (considering a 650W PSU, which is 6.5 times the TV example).
However there is sharp growth in demand being predicted and I don’t see any sign of humanity trading in some other power usage to get their data center power allocation. Even if we’re are greening the grid it is all for nothing if the extra capacity has to be filled in by more fossil fuels.
Yes, about 12% per year these days. Not enough to really change the picture for a long time, though.