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Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

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Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#41

Post by faeriechangling »

nozzlegear wrote: post #26
bastard_op wrote: post #11

They'll just buy some more fake carbon credits, tell everyone it'll be alright and the planet won't overheat now. Nothing to see here, move along.

Does Microsoft have a history of buying fake carbon credits? And by that I mean, do they buy carbon credits from disreputable sources more often than reputable ones on average in recent years? Or do you simply believe that all carbon credit systems are fake?

I'm pretty firmly in the latter camp. Carbon credits essentially measure how much co2 emissions were prevented by the carbon credits existing. Not only is that pretty much impossible to measure, every company offering carbon credits at market rates is using a form of measurement which is BS.

Carbon credit schemes may do SOMETHING to offset climate change but less than they advertise.

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#42

Post by [deleted] »

tibbar wrote: post #36
caseyy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI isn't the most efficient way to retrieve accurate information or to generate quality content, it's the most efficient way to retrieve plausible information and generate poor quality art and code. And that's really interesting. There is a group of people that trust LLMs for all searches but most tech-literate people know they hallucinate, and understand roughly how an LLM works and that hallucinations are indisting…

I see people frame generative AI this way a lot, as if they're strictly worse than alternatives in all dimensions ( in accurate, low quality). But I think there's several important dimension where they're strictly better, including flexibility, interactivity, and accessibility. I can ask an LLM a very specific question about my specific development environment, codebase, and tools and get a specific answer back that…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#43

Post by faeriechangling »

elbasti wrote: post #21
Barrin92 wrote: post #8

A good moment to bring up Jevon's Paradox ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox ) "In economics, the Jevons paradox occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the falling cost of use induces increases in demand enough that resource use is increased, rather than reduced. Governments typically assume that effici…

A good reminder to everyone that global CO2 emissions are higher than they have ever been [0]. Again: 2024 was the mos polluting year in history. A lot of feel-good articles and tweets will often talk about the plummeting costs of solar, or how the share of renewables is higher than ever, or stuff like that, which is, from a global warming point of view, absolutely irrelevant . The only thing that matters as far as w…

I saw the point of things of the carbon tax as flattening a plateau more than stopping co2 emission growth. I never really had any delusions about that being politically viable, I can't even convince most around me that it's worth it to put a price on carbon that is several times less than its actual impact on the environment and economy.

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#44

Post by llm_trw »

grandma_tea wrote: post #27

I tried to find the source of the 29% figure, but it's defined as data center usage. I understand machine learning is resource intensive but how much is it really? Are the numbers for this available to the public?

It's matrix multiplication being done as fast as possible. On local machines the best proxy for useful gpu load for training is power draw.

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#45

Post by asabjorn »

faeriechangling wrote: post #37
asabjorn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Can you think of any ulterior motives behind the oligarch's actions? Such as how global warming is causing increasing insurance rates worldwide as both severe and more mundane weather events cause more and more property damage to their extensive property portfolios?

Let’a assume the hypothesis that they believe that to be true. Why would anyone that believe that shut off nuclear plants that emit zero CO2 in Germany and burn wood as well as gas instead?

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#46

Post by gds44 »

delish wrote: post #22

It is praiseworthy Microsoft straightforwardly reported the increase. I haven't paid attention to these kinds of optional disclosures. Never thought about it but were I asked I would have said these are advertisements. I don't dislike sustainability, but I thought those function as advertisements because you can expect to get more sustainability "for free" over time, because of many things (Moore's Law, ephemeralizat…

Yet their own people are quiting over their claims - https://grist.org/accountability/microsoft-employees-spent-y...

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#47

Post by jonas21 »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #28

The energy consumption would not be a problem if it was renewable energy . Ironically, we already have plenty of renewable energy in the US, it’s just there, sitting, waiting to be hooked up to the grid and not being used productively. The US currently has 947 GW of renewable generation capacity that is not hooked up to the grid [1]. To put that number into perspective, the US currently has 1160 GW of generation capa…

> Ironically, we already have plenty of renewable energy in the US, it’s just there, sitting, waiting to be hooked up to the grid and not being used productively.

The 947 GW is the total proposed capacity for solar projects that are in various planning stages. They have not been built yet, and most of them will never be built -- historically only about 14% of proposed capacity ends up entering service [1].

This isn't to say that it's not important to invest in the grid to handle future needs. But it's not like there's a bunch of renewable energy just sitting there idle.

[1] https://emp.lbl.gov/queues

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#48

Post by loeg »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #28

The energy consumption would not be a problem if it was renewable energy . Ironically, we already have plenty of renewable energy in the US, it’s just there, sitting, waiting to be hooked up to the grid and not being used productively. The US currently has 947 GW of renewable generation capacity that is not hooked up to the grid [1]. To put that number into perspective, the US currently has 1160 GW of generation capa…

Data centers can't run on intermittent sources.

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#49

Post by ec109685 »

elbasti wrote: post #21
Barrin92 wrote: post #8

A good moment to bring up Jevon's Paradox ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox ) "In economics, the Jevons paradox occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the falling cost of use induces increases in demand enough that resource use is increased, rather than reduced. Governments typically assume that effici…

A good reminder to everyone that global CO2 emissions are higher than they have ever been [0]. Again: 2024 was the mos polluting year in history. A lot of feel-good articles and tweets will often talk about the plummeting costs of solar, or how the share of renewables is higher than ever, or stuff like that, which is, from a global warming point of view, absolutely irrelevant . The only thing that matters as far as w…

The slope of new clean energy coming online is also important.

A company may be losing money today, but if they are growing revenue on a path to profitability, that is what ultimately matters.

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#50

Post by kevindamm »

faeriechangling wrote: post #41
nozzlegear wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Microsoft have a history of buying fake carbon credits? And by that I mean, do they buy carbon credits from disreputable sources more often than reputable ones on average in recent years? Or do you simply believe that all carbon credit systems are fake?

I'm pretty firmly in the latter camp. Carbon credits essentially measure how much co2 emissions were prevented by the carbon credits existing. Not only is that pretty much impossible to measure, every company offering carbon credits at market rates is using a form of measurement which is BS. Carbon credit schemes may do SOMETHING to offset climate change but less than they advertise.

What about the carbon credits for building out renewable energy systems locally/domestically? Those exist.
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