| ▲ | lpcvoid 5 hours ago |
| AI is one of the causes that climate change is accelerating, which is another in a long list of reasons to hate it. |
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| ▲ | tonmoy 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Im not sure I follow. AI barely consumes energy compared to other industries and instead of focusing on the heavy hitters first wasting time on the climate impact on AI doesn’t seem useful |
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| ▲ | elbasti 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is wrong. AI uses ~4% of the US grid, and projections are that it will grow to 10%+ in the next 6 years. And most of that new capacity will be natural gas. That increase would basically whipe out the reduction in CO2 emissions the USA has had since 2018. | | |
| ▲ | thethirdone 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Compare that to ~30% of all energy use for transportation. So approximately 40%*4% = 1.6% vs 30%. I find your correction to be more wrong that the initial statement. > And most of that new capacity will be natural gas. That increase would basically whipe out the reduction in CO2 emissions the USA has had since 2018. Emissions in 2018 were ~5250M metric ton and in 2024 it was 4750M. That is a reduction of 10% total emissions. Without going into calculations of green electricity and such, its still safe to say AI using 10% of the grid would not completely wipe out the reduction. [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183943/us-carbon-dioxide... | | |
| ▲ | graypegg 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Compare that to ~30% of all energy use for transportation Transportation, especially ALL transportation, does a LOT. You're looking for ROI not the absolute values. I think it's undeniable that the positive economic effect of every car, truck, train, and plane is unfathomably huge. That's trains moving minerals, planes moving people, trucks transporting goods, and hundreds of combinations thereof, all interconnected. Literally no economic activity would happen without transportation, including the transition to green energy sources, of which would improve the emissions from transportation. I think it might be more emissions-efficient at generating value than AI by a factor exceeding the 7.5x energy use. Moving rocks from (place with rocks) to (place that needs rocks) continues to be just an insanely good thing for humanity. Also, I'm not sure about your math. 4% would be 4% of the whole like in a pie chart, not 4% of the remainder after removing one slice. 4% AI, 30% transportation, 66% other. I don't know where that 40% is from. | | |
| ▲ | thethirdone 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Also, I'm not sure about your math. 4% would be 4% of the whole like in a pie chart, not 4% of the remainder after removing one slice. 4% AI, 30% transportation, 66% other. I don't know where that 40% is from. 40% is for energy use in the US in the form of electricity. It was a rough number that I pulled from my memory. It is roughly right though. Check https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ AI is not currently 4% of the energy market of the US. Only the grid. I should have been more clear about the ALL ENERGY vs GRID distinction. > I think it might be more emissions-efficient at generating value than AI by a factor exceeding the 7.5x energy use. Moving rocks from (place with rocks) to (place that needs rocks) continues to be just an insanely good thing for humanity. I really made no statement on the value of doing things. Transportation is obviously very valuable. I just wanted a more fact based conversation. |
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| ▲ | elbasti 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Compare that to ~30% of all energy use for transportation. So approximately 40%*4% = 1.6% vs 30%. I find your correction to be more wrong that the initial statement. I don't follow. The comparison is 30% of energy use for transportation vs 4% for AI, and soon 30% for transportation vs 10% for AI. | | |
| ▲ | thethirdone 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The grid is not all energy use. To get the numbers on an even playing field you need to compensate for that only ~40% of energy goes through the grid. And that leaves a 6:1 ratio assuming projections run true. It very well might be possible to get efficiency wins from the transportation sector that outweigh growth in AI. |
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| ▲ | Insanity 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Pretty large amounts of energy go towards training large language models. Running them is also a non-negligible energy cost at scale. But yeah, there's way worse industries out there when it comes to climate change impact. | |
| ▲ | datsci_est_2015 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | ? Am I misunderstanding the push for nuclear energy and record energy prices in locales with new “data centers”? | |
| ▲ | hirako2000 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Before large models things were starting to move to micro VM, lean hardware, firecracker cloud platforms running thin containers. Ai buzz and now we are building giga factories. It stands for gigawatt usage, no less target. | |
| ▲ | surgical_fire 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Which is why talk about AI datacenters typically involve energy supply constraints, and possibly the need to build power plants along with it. It is, of course, because it barely uses any energy. |
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| ▲ | amelius 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > AI is one of the causes that climate change is accelerating, which is another in a long list of reasons to hate it. If you want to point at causes of climate change, look no further than adtech. It's the driving force behind our overconsumption. And it has perhaps an even longer list of reasons to hate it. |
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| ▲ | proc0 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| People sure don't care about it anymore and it coincided with rise of AI. There's barely any mention of climate change compared to 5+ years ago. I really think this is all about how to keep the capitalist system from imploding because of so much debt (so the next big thing needs to happen to keep the growth). |
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| ▲ | sharemywin 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | climate change was an important issue when they were trying to peddle EVs and solar. | | |
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| ▲ | mostertoaster 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The EPA repealed its 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gases warm the Earth and endanger human health and well-being. So this is not a good reason to oppose AI. Now the sheer energy it requires does mean we might want to go nuclear though. Natural gas is nice though because it does pollute the air far less than coal. You might argue the EPA only repealed that because of political agendas, but the same argument could be made for why it was passed. A lot of people got very rich off the fear mongering from climate alarmists. |
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| ▲ | computerdork 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Hmm, it seems pretty clear that climate is getting hotter, so it seems natural for some people to be worried about what will happen to the planet in a few decades (me for one). And, you may be right, it may not be that big a deal and that we're being alarmists, but it seems like we currently have the tools to slow it down greatly. Why not be on the safe side and use them? ... but to be honest, guessing my opinion won't sway you in any way, still thought I'd try. thanks! |
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| ▲ | xvector 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Seeing this kind of populist misinformation/bikeshedding on HN is particularly disappointing. |
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