this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20289663

A report from Morgan Stanley suggests the datacenter industry is on track to emit 2.5 billion tons by 2030, which is three times higher than the predictions if generative AI had not come into play.

The extra demand from GenAI will reportedly lead to a rise in emissions from 200 million tons this year to 600 million tons by 2030, thanks largely to the construction of more data centers to keep up with the demand for cloud services.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_ 27 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Everyone thought AI was going to kill us via some Terminator-like Skynet.

Nope.

It’s just going to let us kill ourselves via greed and accelerate destroying the environment.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

But it's ok because it's also going to solve climate change.

[–] Rakudjo 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And even if it doesn't, it'll still make hundreds of trillions of dollars doing it, so it was worth it in the end.

[–] exso 2 points 1 day ago

Don't worry, it's all very green!

The cash and stock tickers that is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

The solution it will eventually come up with - kill all humans

[–] postmateDumbass 1 points 1 day ago

Its the 'first to market wins' paradigm

[–] Wispy2891 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Every IT company now: we should increase our server costs by 100x to offer unwanted gimmicks that users don't want and aren't willing to pay

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

And don't trust

[–] Kyrgizion 92 points 3 days ago (15 children)

Between AI and shitcoin mining, these two "technology branches" already consume more power than all the green power added to the grid combined.

It's why humans will always remain de facto slaves to a few masters. Anything that could potentially be advantageous to all life on Earth? Only if the ones at the top get to profit first. No profit? Enjoy scorching to death on hell-planet for the next forty years!

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Between AI and shitcoin mining, these two “technology branches” already consume more power than all the green power added to the grid combined.

And your sources? I only did a cursory search, and according to the IEA data centers are responsible for somewhere in the range of 2-6% of electricity demand. Renewables are currently around 30% globally.

Source: https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2024

[–] Lost_My_Mind 24 points 3 days ago

I feel like some people are just emotional reactionaries. They see a certain story, and in their own mind they make the story worse than it is, and treat their feelings as fact.

I have no sources on this, or proof that this guy in particular is doing that.

.........wait, am I doing it right now???

Hmmmmm......

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[–] drunkpostdisaster 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Oh yea, this is happening too.

[–] Ragdoll_X 35 points 3 days ago

I remember when scientists were more focused on making AI models smaller and more efficient, and research on generative models was focused on making GANs as robust as possible with very little compute and data.

Now that big companies and rich investors saw the potential for profit in AI the paradigm has shifted to "throw more compute at the wall until something sticks", so it's not surprising it's affecting carbon emissions.

Besides that it's also annoying that most of the time they keep their AIs behind closed doors, and even in the few cases where the weights are released publicly these models are so big that they aren't usable for the vast majority of people, as sometimes even Kaggle can't handle them.

[–] alienanimals 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

"The only way to interpret statistics is with a healthy dose of skepticism and a thorough understanding of their context."

While people in this thread jump at the opportunity for this slice of statistics to affirm their confirmation biases, intelligent people will ask what the total carbon dioxide output looks like by comparison.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You're quick to imply that this study is bullshit, yet offer no counter argument except "believing statistics is for losers lul"

So where are your sources to refute the article?

[–] alienanimals 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Never said the study was bullshit. I just said to look at the bigger picture.

I would show you how Google works and provide an article, but your reading comprehension leads me to believe you'd come up with another straw man fallacy to support your confirmation bias.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Oh fuck off already, nobody cares.

Do we have an iamverysmart community? We could use one.

[–] alienanimals 0 points 1 day ago

Lol you cared enough to respond. Sorry you're too stupid to hold a conversation.

[–] NocturnalEngineer 7 points 2 days ago

Ita also trivial to come to the same conclusion at a smaller scale.

You can run a LLM at home and see the amount of GPU & power resources it takes to compute the larger models. If I ran that full time, your household bill will most likely be 3x alone.

[–] Melvin_Ferd 1 points 2 days ago

Can't be logical here. This is a topic that's like discussing immigration with Republicans.

[–] credo 26 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Which search engines give results without an AI generated response?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 days ago

Startpage and DuckDuckGo, but you might want to disable summaries in the latter's settings.

[–] werefreeatlast 5 points 2 days ago

This is exactly what using AI feels like:

https://youtu.be/lM0teS7PFMo?

[–] gedaliyah 10 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Look, i'm not saying that this isn't a problem. My only question is, is this one of those "global warming is because people don't recycle their soda bottles" things? In other words, How concerned should I be about this vs, taking attention away from the energy, beef, and transportation industry?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Very concerned. It’s currently a race who can speed run us to extinction first.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't think this is something to focus on. Tech being 40% of all emissions in the US is suspicious, given that in 2021, all industry was 30.1%, and all transportation was 28.5%. And the total emissions in the US was 6.3 billion tons. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=108623

I don't have more recent data (if it's in the article, I didn't see it at a skim) but I feel like oil, gas, and agriculture are the bigger long-term targets.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Looks like Techradar misunderstood parts of the source story. The projected emissions over the next 10 years is equal to 40% of all US emissions. The Register

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Lesson: only ask AI if you're still stuck after searching and have no colleague around.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

This is the "carbon footprint" fallacy created by big oil. We should vote left and unionize until either the external cost of pollution is internalized with pigouvian taxes, or electricity is rationed by a community-owned organization.

Nobody will notice us shooting ourselves in the foot and expecting corporations to do it too. They don't care if we lead by example unilaterally.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

It's a nice gimmick and sometimes fun but probably not worth it given the state of the planet already.

[–] mrvictory1 8 points 3 days ago

Call me surprised.

[–] Melvin_Ferd 1 points 2 days ago

From construction of three data centers or everyday use. Weird wording this whole article.

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