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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

#191

Post by gloflo »

blharr wrote: post #87
jonas21 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However articles like this must link to references. There are links to sources for every piece of data in the article.

Where? One of the most crucial points "Training an AI model emits as much as 200 plane flights from New York to San Francisco" This seems to come from this blog https://icecat.com/blog/is-ai-truly-a-sustainable-choice/#:~... . which refers to this article https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/06/06/239031/training-... which is talking about models like *GPT-2, BERT, and ELMo* -- _5+ year old models_ at this point. Th…

Just 200 flights? I would expected a number at least 100 times that. 200 flights of that range are what, 0.1% of a single day of global air traffic?

All of that is crazy in terms of environmental destruction but this makes AI training seem nothing to focus on to me.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#192

Post by ben_w »

palata wrote: post #189

> and it’s completely clear to me that one side is getting it entirely wrong and spreading misleading ideas What a great way to start an article. I get it as: "I am not open to listening to your arguments, and in fact if you disagree with me, I will assume that you are a moron". It reminds me of people saying "planes are not the problem: actually if you compare it to driving a car, it uses less energy per person and…

I take your general point, but:

> Except that it doesn't work if you don't drive your car alone (if you assume the plane is full of passengers, why not assuming that the car is, as well?)

These can be measured for averages. Lots of cars with one person in them, seldom cars fully packed; lots of planes fully packed, seldom (but it does happen) that the plane is almost empty.

> we have largely missed the goal of keeping global warming to 1.5C (thinking that we could reach it is absurd at this point).

Probably, yes; last year passed the threshold — it would be a pleasant *surprise* if that turned out to have been a fluke 14* years early.

* 14 because it would take 14 years for the exponential — seen for the last 30 years — for PV to replace all forms of power consumption; not just electricity, everything. But even then we'd also need to make rapid simultaneous progress with non-energy CO2 sources like cattle and concrete.

> around the equator will become unlivable for human beings (similar to being on Mars: you need equipment just to survive outside)

In so far as your bracket, sure; but there's a huge gap in what equipment you would need.

The comparison I often make is that Mars combines the moisture of the Sahara, the warmth of the Antarctic, the air pressure of the peak of Mount Everest, and the soil quality of a superfund cleanup site, before then revealing that it's actually worse on all counts.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#193

Post by kalaksi »

nameless_me wrote: post #125
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 have always felt this way too. Our personal choices do not move the needle on fossil fuel and plastics. One could embrace aversion to these out of a sense of sustainability to signal virtue, but lets not pretend it will save the planet. It won't. Restricting aviation flights, stopping wars and minimizing the dirty fuel used in maritime freight does much more. But the world will not do it.

While I agree in general, my opinion is that customer choices do also matter and can move the needle, slowly, with larger cultural change.

Personally, trying to make better choices, big or small, isn't about "virtue signalling". It's about acknowledging the issues and living according to ones values.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#194

Post by c0redump »

eastbound wrote: post #135
throwaway314155 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right just a little bit of restraint. On an unprecedented scale of coordination by hundreds of millions to billions of people - a scale of cooperation that has probably never occurred in human history (and there's no reason to believe it will any time soon). But sure, if people "just" did a "little", it would go a long way. Just a _little_ restraint from the entire population all at once in perpetuity. No big deal.

[flagged]

Yikes. Is this type of schizoposting allowed on HN?

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#196

Post by satvikpendem »

_ache_ wrote: post #190
jonas21 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given that title, it becomes somewhat obvious that the article itself doesn't need to exist. Why? I regularly hear people trying to argue that LLMs are an environmental distaster.

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.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#197

Post by sofixa »

eastbound wrote: post #135
throwaway314155 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right just a little bit of restraint. On an unprecedented scale of coordination by hundreds of millions to billions of people - a scale of cooperation that has probably never occurred in human history (and there's no reason to believe it will any time soon). But sure, if people "just" did a "little", it would go a long way. Just a _little_ restraint from the entire population all at once in perpetuity. No big deal.

[flagged]

Most ecologists are also anti-natalist, so your premise is wrong.

And if you look at CO2 per capita numbers, the average person in a developed country pollutes tons more, regardless of skin colour: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita . And there are big outliers too, like Americans, and fossil fuel exporting countries.

And what do you know, most polluters have very low birth rates. Where there are high birth rates, the CO2 emissions are derisory (you need 7 Egyptians or 20 Nigerians to match one American).

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#198

Post by Fricken »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #151
dijit wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with you, but Americans intentionally reinforce car dependence whenever it's discussed. It's bad enough that even non-US people regurgitate those talking points despite them being significantly less true for them; because they see it so much online.

> 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 ride a bike, and doing so has saved me about $450k in transportation costs over 3 decades. The effort it takes to earn $450k is something to include amongst the unpleasantries and pathologies associated with driving.

Now, of course, I've had my whole life to set up my whole life the way I want it, and with a little foresight it really wasn't that difficult to set it up in a way that facilitates getting around on a bicycle. It involved making choices. Choices about where to work and live. If more people made such choices, there would be more options available to facilitate them.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#199

Post by c0redump »

_ache_ wrote: post #190
jonas21 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given that title, it becomes somewhat obvious that the article itself doesn't need to exist. Why? I regularly hear people trying to argue that LLMs are an environmental distaster.

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.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#200

Post by ben_w »

monero-xmr wrote: post #23
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…

[flagged]

> Charge the consumer of energy the requisite price. If you want to make them pay for some externality, great.

> And it is elites only as poors don’t give a shit

The poor people are also consumers; raising prices of energy for that group is a fantastic way to get kicked out of office even if you're an actual literal dictator.

People are complex.

The screeds you're objecting to are part of the political process to tell governments to do something, even if that something ends up being a mix of what you suggest plus subsidies for the poor, or something completely different, in any case to avoid being defenestrated

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