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Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

andymasley.substack.com

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Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#211

Post by OlivOnTech »

simonw wrote: post #54

The absolute best thing I've read on this subject is this article here: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-generative-ai-the-powe... It talks at great length about data center trends relating to generative AI, from the perspective of someone who has been deeply involved in researching power usage and sustainability for two decades. I made my own notes on that piece here (for if you don't have a half hour to spend…

Hello Simon,

You mention that

> Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon all have net-zero emission targets which they take very seriously, making them "some of the most significant corporate purchasers of renewable energy in the world". This helps explain why they're taking very real interest in nuclear power.

Nuclear is indeed (more or less) zero-emission, but it's not renewable.

Thank you for the synthesis and link to the original article, it's a good read!

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#212

Post by fulafel »

yapyap wrote: post #11

Such a stupid post, I know people on HN don’t like absolute descriptors like that and sorry for that. Obviously the LLMs and ChatGPT don’t use the most energy when answering your question, they churn through insane amounts of water and energy when training them, so much so that big tech companies do not disclose and try to obscure those amounts as much as possible. You aren’t destroying the environment by using it RI…

Anyone care to have a go at back of the envelope number for training energy use amortized per query for ChatGPT's models? Is the training or the inference going to dominate?

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#213

Post by _ache_ »

c0redump wrote: post #199
_ache_ wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because LLMs are an environmental disaster. It's not about any individual usage. It's the global technology that is yet to prove to be useful and that already have bad for the environment. Any new usage should be free of impact on the environment. (Note: The technology of LLM itself is not an environmental disaster, but how it is put in use currently isn't the way).

> yet to prove to be useful I don’t understand this perspective. It should be abundantly clear at this point that these systems are quite useful for a variety of applications. Do they have problems? Sure. Do the AI boosters who breathlessly claim that the models are super intelligent make me cringe? Sure. But saying that they’re not useful is just downright crazy.

> I don’t understand this perspective. It should be abundantly clear at this point that these systems are quite useful for a variety of applications.

LLM are polyvalent. But in most of the tasks they are not the most efficient way to do the task.

Want to play chess ? Use Stockfish or Leela. Want to do image recognition ? SAM or TinyViT like models. Want to know if your are sick ? Go to the doctor or at least do a search on the web.

Yes, there is tasks where LLM are perfect for (speech analysis/classification for example). But omnipotent chatbot isn't one for example.

If there were a revolutionary use, we would have a productivity boom. We don't. This article is from 2021: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/10/1026008/the-comi...

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#214

Post by _ache_ »

satvikpendem wrote: post #196
_ache_ wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because LLMs are an environmental disaster. It's not about any individual usage. It's the global technology that is yet to prove to be useful and that already have bad for the environment. Any new usage should be free of impact on the environment. (Note: The technology of LLM itself is not an environmental disaster, but how it is put in use currently isn't the way).

> It's the global technology that is yet to prove to be useful Useful for whom, by what definition? I personally find it very useful for my day to day work, whether it be helping me write code, think through ideas, or otherwise.

I don't want to be rude but I don't think that your personal experience is of any interest. The only question is "are LLM relevant ?"

And the only way to assert that they are is to get numbers (big or small) and to compare them to alternatives.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#215

Post by AstralStorm »

lugu wrote: post #175
TulliusCicero wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would agree with you, but Americans intentionally reinforce car dependence whenever it's discussed. They do, because their experience is that transit and biking really do suck and are useless. Which is accurate, for where they've lived. The problem is that you have to convince people that things could be better, when their lived experience is that it's always terrible.

I live in place known for its rainy weather, 15 km from work (because of the housing crisis). Being overweight, biking to work never crossed my mind for two years. Once I tried to commute during weekend, as a challenge. I realized a few things: - same duration as the train - it give me the exercise I needed - it relaxes me - it is free since I already have a bike Yes, it still take me 50 min to commute, but now I enj…

And if you need help and can afford it, ebikes exist. Some of them really cheap. Hopefully not skimping on safeties though.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#216

Post by wisty »

Liquix wrote: post #17

~90% of the plastic debris in the ocean comes from ten rivers [0]. eight are in china/SEA. millions and billions of single-use items are sitting in warehouses and on store shelves wrapped in plastic. even before the plastic is discarded, the factories these items are produced in dump metric tons of waste into the oceans/soil with little repercussion. point is, none of our "personal lifestyle decisions" - not eating m…

I think this is wrong.

Descriptively / "objectively" if you make your demand cleaner, you decrease demand for dirty consumption. You can't say individuals don't matter by comparing them to the world, that's invalid.

Normatively, is it a useful lie? Maybe, to some extent. People are lazy, selfish, and stupid. Peter Singer points out that we might be nice to people nearby, but we don't give money to people starving in other countries even if we think it will make a real difference. And no human can really know how even a pencil is made, so we make poor decisions. A carbon tax would unleash the free market on the problem. But saying individuals can't act is not good leadership, if even the people who say they want to fix the issue won't make personal sacrifices, why should the average voter?

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#217

Post by satvikpendem »

_ache_ wrote: post #214
satvikpendem wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the global technology that is yet to prove to be useful Useful for whom, by what definition? I personally find it very useful for my day to day work, whether it be helping me write code, think through ideas, or otherwise.

I don't want to be rude but I don't think that your personal experience is of any interest. The only question is "are LLM relevant ?" And the only way to assert that they are is to get numbers (big or small) and to compare them to alternatives.

> I don't think that your personal experience is of any interest

But you didn't specify what you meant by "useful," hence why I asked the question I did. So under such ambiguity, my assertion is absolutely a counterpoint to what you just said. I will ask again, useful for whom, by what definition?

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#218

Post by satvikpendem »

_ache_ wrote: post #213
c0redump wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet to prove to be useful I don’t understand this perspective. It should be abundantly clear at this point that these systems are quite useful for a variety of applications. Do they have problems? Sure. Do the AI boosters who breathlessly claim that the models are super intelligent make me cringe? Sure. But saying that they’re not useful is just downright crazy.

> I don’t understand this perspective. It should be abundantly clear at this point that these systems are quite useful for a variety of applications. LLM are polyvalent. But in most of the tasks they are not the most efficient way to do the task. Want to play chess ? Use Stockfish or Leela. Want to do image recognition ? SAM or TinyViT like models. Want to know if your are sick ? Go to the doctor or at least do a sea…

> If there were a revolutionary use, we would have a productivity boom. We don't.

What evidence do you have for this assertion? It seems like you are asserting something as fact when in reality it's your own personal opinion, yet ironically you are dismissing everyone else's personal experiences as mere opinion too.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#219

Post by smcin »

hgomersall wrote: post #203
smcin wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not by rationing, if you meant the US government: US per-capita consumption of meat is 328 lbs/year [UN FAO]. You'd try to reduce the subsidies and incentives for meat/ corn/ soybean production which are baked into the USDA budget ($200bn in 2024), since the 1930s (Great Depression), and more since the 1950s (and related stuff like the marketing tool of the "Food Pyramid"). These will be as politically hard to cancel…

That's an incredible amount of meat. That's 400g a day per person. I can't even eat that much meat in one go without feeling the meal is seriously unbalanced. Half that is a meat heavy meal for me. So that must mean a significant number people are eating huge amounts of meat for every meal. That or the waste is huge.

Yes that stat does make me wonder. Even if 21% of meat is wasted [0]. (Possibly they count "reaches a supermarket shelf" as = "not wasted", even if it isn't ultimately cooked or eaten?). But even then.

([1], the 2023 study by Tulane University supposedly finding "12% Of Americans 1/2 Of The Nation's Beef: How a mere 12% of Americans eat half the nation's beef, creating significant health and environmental impacts" is a red herring, all it says is that on any given day, some fraction of meat-eaters exceed portion sizes ("Those 12%—most likely to be men or people between the ages of 50 and 65—eat what researchers called a disproportionate amount of beef on a given day").

[0]: https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/food-waste-in-the-...

> "Wasted food ranks as the number one material in US landfills, accounting for 24.1% of all municipal solid waste. Americans waste 21% of meat, 46% of fruit and veg, 35% of seafood, and 17% of dairy products. Altogether, Americans waste between 30% and 40% of the total US food supply."... "Poor packaging techniques causes 10% of grain products, 5% of seafood, and 4% of meat to be lost."

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditForGrownups/comments/16cpmni/...

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#220

Post by _ache_ »

satvikpendem wrote: post #218
_ache_ wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand this perspective. It should be abundantly clear at this point that these systems are quite useful for a variety of applications. LLM are polyvalent. But in most of the tasks they are not the most efficient way to do the task. Want to play chess ? Use Stockfish or Leela. Want to do image recognition ? SAM or TinyViT like models. Want to know if your are sick ? Go to the doctor or at least do a sea…

> If there were a revolutionary use, we would have a productivity boom. We don't. What evidence do you have for this assertion? It seems like you are asserting something as fact when in reality it's your own personal opinion, yet ironically you are dismissing everyone else's personal experiences as mere opinion too.

> What evidence do you have for this assertion?

No predicted productivity boom (check last US data), no GDP boost yet (again last data). Even LLM enthusiast like McKinsey or Goldmansachs expect nothing before 2027.

And it's not about LLM, it's about the whole AI progress. That is, obviously, a revolution.

https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/ai-may-start-...

But just to be clear. I'm denying something said to be obvious. I should not be the one who give sources about something that doesn't exist. If there is a productivity boom, I may not have seen it. Show it to me.

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