The entire current AI industry is based on one huge hype-fueled resource grab— asthma-inducing, dubiously legal, unlicensed natural gas turbines and all. I doubt even most of the “worthwhile” tasks will be objectively considered worth the price when the dust clears.

I do appreciate this note more than others. It is food for thought. I think it could have been worded a lot more respectfully though.

No, it's not worded disrespectful enough... this idiot use of an idiotic technology needs to be called out.

Did you raise tbe same point in pointless meetings that you participate? “Guys, stop quibbling, you are wasting precious resource”

Are you saying that you like pointless meetings that waste your time? I sure don't. My team generally does a lot of work to ensure that our meetings are short and productive. It's a point that comes up quite often.

I hope you feel the same way every time you eat beef.

Maybe I do, or maybe I am very selfish and I think that my palate is more important than cows? Or maybe cows wouldn't even exist at all without the cheeseburgers?

I think their point was that beef farming has an enormously negative environmental impact, and we in the west in fact do overconsume meat. Though I think their point was to use AI with impunity, when I think we should cut back on our meat consumption a lot.

If tokens and beef came from the same limited “credit pool”, I would for sure be vegan so I could work more tokens

Some quick napkin math: AI energy usage for a chat like that in the post (estimated ~100 Wh) is comparable to driving ~100m in the average car, making 1 of toast, or bring 1 liter of water to boiling.

I’d wager the average American eats more than 20 dollars/month of meat overall, but let’s say they spend as much as an OpenAI subscription on beef. If you truly believe in free markets, then they have the same environmental impact. But which one has more externalities? Many supply chain analyses have been done, which you can look up. As one might expect, numbers don’t look good for beef.

Literal whataboutism

Exactly the same as pointing out that LLMs use energy. That whole conversation probably used as much energy as making a piece of toast.

No, there is nothing fallacious about accurately pointing out that someone is being inconsistent or irrational by caring about minor issues while ignoring larger issues of the same kind.

As someone who isn't much into AI, you make me want to use AI more just to spite the eco-virtue-signaling idiots.

It's fun to harness all that computing power. That should be reason enough. Life is meant to be enjoyed.

And this is why this technology needs to be destroyed.

Some things are signaling and some things are genuine worry. Learn to tell the difference

This is why I like to go on vacation every year and blow what for most individuals on the earth represents an entire lifetime of co2 emissions just on the airfare.

Take that virtue-signalers, by the time you figure out how to fix the planet I'll be dead.

What an empty outlook on life you have