And at the same time, on the other side of the world, people are celebrating how much more productive they are with AI, never mind the energy taken up by datacenters both directly and indirectly (encouraging more consumerism and more CO2 output). It's exceptionally callous.

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browningstreet 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

They denied climate change even before the data center boom. Poor argument, even if the target you want is on the side of the field you’re aiming at.

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jryle70 13 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

People also stupidly watch soccer games such as World Cup, go on meaningless vacations, eat out when they can cook at home, argue nonsense on online forums such as HN. Sure those activities aren't "encouraging more consumerism and more CO2 output"?

	▲	cineticdaffodil 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Actually- when you take it standalone- e-activities, that lead to little else consumed, are quite ideal. You will never get the budhist monk, meditating on a rock out of normal people, but somebody sittings there, playing a game for hours on a glowing rock, is as close to nilwanna as it gets. So thank you gamedevs out there for creating this.

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ajsnigrutin 4 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But if the forests burn down, that makes more tree-free land to build more datacenters!

(/s, it's a joke, like this one: https://i.imgur.com/CMsAp8v.png )

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nerdsniper 24 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I feel like this would be much less of an issue if the datacenters were all fully solar+battery powered.

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mistrial9 22 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

hello from California -- in 2017 three thousand homes burned (Santa Rosa) .. the damage totals are easy to look up.. The skies over San Francisco were so black that the sun was barely an orange dot. I am fully sympathetic to the people in France and elsewhere. This part of the world suffers from wildfire also.

	▲	vouaobrasil 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		What I was referring to were the elite benefitting from AI the most. Even if their house burns up, they likely have enough money to just buy a new (maybe cheaper) one somewhere else and retire. Obviously, not everyone in California is like that - I was referring to those who are getting huge salaries at tech corporations. But it's a lot different for a poorer person to lose their home than a super rich one.