I’ve found that AI has done literally nothing to improve my life in any way and has really just caused endless frustrations. From the enshitification of journalism to ruining pretty much all tech support and customer service, what is the point of this shit?
I work on the Salesforce platform and now I have their dumbass account managers harassing my team to buy into their stupid AI customer service agents. Really, the only AI highlight that I have seen is the guy that made the tool to spam job applications to combat worthless AI job recruiters and HR tools.
Regardless of how useful some might find it, there isn’t a single use case that justifies the environmental cost (not to mention the societal cost). None. Stop using it. You were able to survive and function without it 2 years ago, and you still can.
This is like saying you can’t play video games because it costs electricity and you can go without. You can say it about literally everything that isn’t strictly necessary to live. AI isn’t just LLMs and only LLMs have a high environmental cost, and unless you are literally wasting the output like the big tech companies are, even that can be justified for the right reasons.
I was talking about LLMs. If you can find a search engine that still works, and look at where we’re at in the destruction of our planetary life support systems, and the colossal amounts of energy and water required for LLMs, then you might revisit your opinion.
I already know of the stats you speak of, and it’s not nothing. But as I explain below, on the scale of other pollutants and for how widespread it’s usage is, it is a footnote. There are far bigger fish to fry first when it comes to reducing water usage and energy usage.
Lets look up some stats together. Most sources agree that we use about 4 trillion cubic meters of water every year worldwide (Although, this stat is from 2015 most likely, and so it will be bigger now). In 2022, using the stats here Microsoft used 1.7 billion gallons per year, and Google 5.56 billion gallons per year. In cubic meters that’s only 23.69 million cubic meters. That’s only 0.00059% of the worldwide water usage. Meanwhile agriculture uses 70%. Granted not every country uses 70%, but a 1% gain there overshadows any current and even future usage.
And even if we just look at the US, since that’s where Google and Microsoft are based, which uses 322 billion gallons of water every day, resulting in about 445 billion cubic meters per year, that’s still 0.00532%. So it’s not hugely significant inside the US either, we can have 187 more Googles and Microsofts before we even top a single percentage.
There are plenty of other hobbies that are also terrible for the environment but we don’t tackle them because like AI it would be a drop in the bucket. Honestly ask yourself, if AI was such a big issue and would threaten lives, why is nobody actually taking serious measures for it? Why are there no public campaigns to get people to stop using AI to save the water? It’s because the stats are concerning, but not significantly so, and if the stats don’t actually back up the position that AI usage is slowly sucking us dry, people don’t stand behind it. If the advancement of AI allows us to save more lives through medical research, or allows us to farm more efficiently, it can easily pay back it’s investment. And those things outweigh the negatives.
However, as I’ve stated multiple times below, I despise the wasteful usage of AI, and therefore you won’t see me praising Bing or Google for their usage of AI in a way that makes no sense and just wastes resources. But the technology exists for everyone, not just those companies. There are more sustainable LLM models than GPT-4, and OpenAI can rightfully be criticized for not prioritizing efficiency rather that bigger and more power hungry models.
EDIT: Added US comparison EDIT2: Double checked some of the math
Governments aren’t taking measures for a whole bunch of things that threaten lives. Infinite (exponential) growth on a finite world isn’t possible and we’re hitting or overshooting several planetary boundaries. We should be scaling things back (if we want a livable world), not pushing down harder on the gas pedal, which LLMs are doing. And Sam Altman went to the emirates asking for Trillions to scale LLMs. All of this for a little more convenience when tackling mostly mundane tasks.
Again - if this is your argument - then the vast majority of things humans do would be “pushing down harder on the gas pedal”. Excluding AI, more people get born every year, water usage also increases every year, electricity usage too. Even if you got rid of all AI right now you would have to overcome those much more significant increases to make a difference. It just doesn’t even make a dent. And it has to, if you want it to actually reduce the impact of climate change and resource depletion.
The world does not stand still, even if we did everything we should to stop climate change. Technology that can change the world and facilitates happier, healthier humans is not a bad thing for a reasonable price. And as I just explained in detail, that price is not that significant in the grand scheme of things. Hence why there is no significant public outrage from this.
If you’re going to hold this position, you should really stick to the biggest polluters, which as you agree, are not getting enough pushback. I agree with that as well, and I would happily stand by your side here. But if someone is handing out pie, and you think everyone should be angry at someone taking 0.00532% of the pie, that is horribly ineffective at actually getting the change we need. Since basically nobody reasonable is going to agree with you. While for the larger polluters it is easily self evident they need it, and we still have a lot of trouble with that.
I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but I don’t like the big tech companies use of AI. That does not say anything about the technology at large though. Screw OpenAI and Sam Altman. If your criticism is purely aimed at wasteful conduct by big companies, I’m all there with you. But there are so many smaller companies that also use AI and LLMs.
Hey man, why are we using the internet, don’t you see this is bad for the environment, while your at it. stop wearing clothes! Our ancestors were able to get by with just our body hair, we’re ruining nature.
That’s how I read the post above you.
Yes, exactly. And I don’t even disagree with making things better on the environment. It’s why I dislike LLMs being pushed into random things that don’t really need it. And if more efficient models exist, they should preferably be used.
But using AI to make your life a little better also brings positives that outweigh that cost. And it seems like as a society we have much bigger polluters to take care of that use orders more electricity and water, and we already struggle massively doing just that. So it really feels like misdirected anger towards the unfairness in society (which the societal cost they mentioned also seems to point to) than a real criticism of AI. And I can understand that anger, but not the mindset behind the conclusions derived from it.
You are not aware of the cost (which has been widely documented) if you believe that.
Fully Agree.
sounds like a frog in a saucepan… sure is getting warmer!
The earth has been warming for decades at this point, even before AI. We know what causes climate change and AI has so far been a footnote on a large list of unsolved problems. The moment that changes I’ll be right there with you, but I’m far more interested in taking down the companies that are largely responsible for it. This logic follows that just living life as a human is unethical because you can’t be environmentally neutral in today’s society, and I reject that notion.
its the speed of the change innit. for example, the fact that google power requirements has increase 50% in the last year must have a tremendous impact.
And Google as one of the largest companies in the world should be held fully responsible for that. But Google isn’t everyone. Google also has a huge amount of computers under their name, but does that mean everyone with a computer should be held to the same standards because it’s the same technology?
If sweeping conclusions are going to be made about the technology, it has to be looked at outside of the context of a specific company and how they implement and use AI. Otherwise, it should be specified that this is a criticism of specific companies and how they use AI, and I’d be totally there agreeing with you in the case of Google.
yeah, but it’s all about how we use the technology. because we can absolutely find a solution to our climate problem by using what we have today. Tech is definitely a double edged sword and we’re just using it wrong. all because of greed and corruption. And that’s what we definitely need to solve, greed and corruption, and not go all Pol Pot on tech.
Then the use of AI advancements in medicine is right out then too? I pretty sure the radiologist that has looked at my MRI this past week looking for lung damage, (thanks long covid!), used it in some form. And my Wife’s upcoming mammogram will also use some form of AI to assist in diagnosis. Or the scheduling department for these appointments that used their own type of AI to manage 1000’s of appointments per month and year. And this is just one example where AI is quickly becoming indispensable.
AI can be tremendously useful for somethings and useless for other things. Painting with such a large brush like you do makes you no better than those tech bros who push AI for everything to make it all more impressive sounding.
Carp: edit for missed letter
There are plenty of specialized “AIs” that are useful and come at a reasonable environmental and societal cost. LLMs are simply an ecological nightmare that arrive at a time where we’re already on the brink of a total breakdown of the biophysical systems that keep us alive. It’s sheer madness.
Your original inference was that no AI was useful at all and all should be banned.
I think it’s pretty clear that OP was referring to the current onslaught of LLMs.