Adding the end user’s device power requirements for the YouTube video comparison and not adding it for LLM usage is disingenuous at best, obviously misleading at worst.

YouTube is way more energy-intensive on the user's device, but sure, let's add another 1 Wh of user device energy use for the LLM. It is still in the same ballpark (or less) as 1 minute of a HD YT video. It is nowhere near "magnitudes worse".

Very very obviously, resource wastage is a PR problem for AI companies, that’s why they’ve worked very hard in the last couple years to obfuscate how much they use and for what exactly, constantly downplaying the ecological cost - because they know very well that the costs are absurd. The cost in water is absurd, the cost in energy is absurd and the cost in clean air is absurd as well, as is the cost of silence.

Focusing this much on AI energy use is detrimental to the overall goal of softening our environmental impact. There are way more serious drivers of energy and water waste. If you call the AI cost in water, energy and clean air "absurd" then what do you call the impact on all of those things by personal transportation or animal agriculture or aviation, all of which are orders of magnitude worse?

Focusing this much on AI energy use is also detrimental to the overall goal of regulating AI and softening its impact on our society. Nobody is going to take us seriously if we are complaining about energy use comparable to watching YouTube.

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 19 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

This forum literally has an entire community dedicated to hating on cars, another capitalist imposition in society. We hate on cars plenty here, you just have your head too far up your ass to even notice.

Do you think they will take us seriously anyways? Why are you pretending as if anyone in this administration is interested in regulating LLMs or the parasites in the tech industry at all?

You are not being reasonable or logical, because you are assuming the other side is open to a reasonable debate on the implementation of this technology. They are not. This is yet another grifting cycle from Silicon Valley, and is entirely an imposition, with them unable to find an actual consumer base for this product. It is yet another imposition on society by the capitalist class, who are bound and determined to generate a market for this and not be left holding the bag and will destroy every other functioning market or product if they have to to generate it, even if the overall outcomes are worse, because they think it will be able to replace enough workers to offset the cost.

[–] Budwig_v_1337hoven@hexbear.net 10 points 5 days ago

Yea, agricultural water waste is even more absurd, but you know, at the end of it people get to fucking eat at least. And it's not like absurd subsidies for water intensive crops or animal ag isn't routinely critiqued in ecologically-minded spaces generally or hexbear specifically. Same for transport.

Also, I'm not "focusing this much on AI energy use", I don't even care that much about the energy cost, I care about the socio-ecological cost and that is not limited to the direct energy use at all. People need clean water to live and they can't eat tokens.