Scaling hypothesis baby! maybe the bitter lesson wasn't so bitter after all
Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
41–50 of 134 posts
Re: Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
#42I don't like 2024 Google, but they seem to be the only ones trying (at least) to make the least impact with their energy consumption. Why aren't there hit pieces like this on the US intelligence massive Utah Data Center? (for example)
We can care about two things at the same time. This isn't a "hit piece", it's reporting on Google's own 2024 environmental report.
No you can't that's why the attention economy is very competitive
Re: Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
#43The galling part of this is that the demand for AI is artificial. Consumers are not demanding AI.
Exactly. I was the first to adopt nearly every new technology in my family growing up. With AI, I query claude like twice a week for things that a search engine never gives to me straight like - "How long do I cook a rack of ribs?", but it's not something I'm about to pay $20/mo for, which is the only way that AI is sustainable. I use it sparingly, and I only use it because it's free. There's just not much appeal to something as unreliable as AI.
Re: Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
#44It turns out AI will kill us, but not in the way that the billionaires were paranoid about. Who needs guns when a planet-sized gas chamber will do?
the infinite paper clip machine concept was prescient
Re: Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Businesses and wealthy people want AI so they can lay people off and hold onto their money, and build stuff faster to capture more marketshare / power. There wasn't demand for computers either. Or, the industrial revolution. AI is a competitive advantage for those that can leverage it.
Consumers ask for AI all the time. Their requests sound like this: - "Google search is drowned by SEO, I can't find anything anymore" - "Wow all these ads suck" - "Ugh my social media is full of hucksters and bots" - "My job applications all go into a black hole" - "LoL gmail can't even find emails I know are there" - "Ffs stop autocorrecting to duck" - "Oh wow we can't even say 'vagina' anymore because The Algorithm…
Those sound like requests for not AI.
> "Google search is drowned by SEO, I can't find anything anymore"
It's now powered by AI. [0]
> "Wow all these ads suck"
Well, they're powered by AI. [1]
> "Ugh my social media is full of hucksters and bots"
Yeah, mostly because the social media feed is all low-effort stuff generated with AI. [2]
> "My job applications all go into a black hole"
Likely because of an AI screening tool. [3]
[0] https://blog.google/products/search/how-ai-powers-great-sear...
[1] https://ads.google.com/intl/en_us/home/campaigns/ai-powered-...
[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/91113437/ai-making-meta-apps-bas...
[3] https://compensationxl.com/companies-are-using-ai-in-their-h...
Re: Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
#46I don't like 2024 Google, but they seem to be the only ones trying (at least) to make the least impact with their energy consumption. Why aren't there hit pieces like this on the US intelligence massive Utah Data Center? (for example)
MS and Apple seem to be doing an awesome job as well
Re: Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
#47And once again a big tech company proves that as soon as their "principes" are put to the test they will abandon them almost instantly. When buying some wind energy was easy and wasn't really a trade-off they were quick to use big phrases like being "committed to the planet" and such. Commitments seem to be rather "flexible" with these companies.
Microsoft: spends an absolute fortune on AI compute. Also Microsoft: Here, take this "carbon aware" Windows Update.
I mean they're just doing what the oil companies did to great success for decades, the bullshit about buying a hybrid or electric car, or recycling^1 your plastic. Why reckon with the impact of your global industry on the planet and have to answer hard questions when you can just make it the consumers fault and guilt powerless people into using a canvas bag^2 instead of a plastic one, despite the fact that the only reason all the fucking plastic bags exist is because your company is making them by the billion?
1: If you want to get angry, look into what an utter farce plastic recycling is.
2: Not that reusable bags are a bad thing in the slightest, I just don't like being condescended to for using a free resource provided at point of sale by a multi-national conglomerate that's burning the world and then turning around to chide me for having a slightly older car than I otherwise could.
Re: Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
#48[flagged]
Re: Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently, instead of batteries the original idea was to have them be part of a brain based neural net which makes a lot more sense than batteries. But this was felt to be too complicated.
Exactly. Why they gave up on the human collective neural net movie plot and replaced it with the human batteries one is beyond me. It makes no sense, humans make terrible batteries. If the machines from the Matrix needed to use some mammals as batteries, why not just use cows instead of humans? They'd be much more complacent with living in the Matrix, grazing on virtual fields, and less likely to wise up and try to e…
It's an easy analogy to say in <10 seconds that non-technical people can understand. Had they not mentioned "bioelectricity" at all, it might have been harder to nitpick.
Re: Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Businesses and wealthy people want AI so they can lay people off and hold onto their money, and build stuff faster to capture more marketshare / power. There wasn't demand for computers either. Or, the industrial revolution. AI is a competitive advantage for those that can leverage it.
Consumers ask for AI all the time. Their requests sound like this: - "Google search is drowned by SEO, I can't find anything anymore" - "Wow all these ads suck" - "Ugh my social media is full of hucksters and bots" - "My job applications all go into a black hole" - "LoL gmail can't even find emails I know are there" - "Ffs stop autocorrecting to duck" - "Oh wow we can't even say 'vagina' anymore because The Algorithm…
Are you sure they’re asking for AI? It sounds to me like they are asking for the Internet to be turned off.