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Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

blog.ecosia.org

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Re: Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

#41

Post by dented42 »

lukeschlather wrote: post #38
nemomarx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this why transit advocates try to reduce the need for owning a car though? I'm thinking a really good search engine would not make you reach for ai as often and so could be eco friendly that way

There are fundamental reasons public transit is always more efficient than private cars. There's no fundamental reason a really good search engine is more efficient than an LLM or any other kind of AI.

The sheer amount of linear algebra number crunching vs some database lookups is monumental. I don’t see how an LLM could ever be as efficient as a search engine.

Re: Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

#42

Post by JimDabell »

dom96 wrote: post #21

I haven't kept up to date with this, but last I heard we still aren't certain how much energy AI training/inference actually takes at the big AI companies (OpenAI/Anthropic). Have any of these companies shared this since? What's our closest estimates if not?

Google: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/measur...

Mistral: https://mistral.ai/news/our-contribution-to-a-global-environ...

OpenAI: https://blog.samaltman.com/the-gentle-singularity

Re: Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

#43

Post by femiagbabiaka »

dented42 wrote: post #41
lukeschlather wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are fundamental reasons public transit is always more efficient than private cars. There's no fundamental reason a really good search engine is more efficient than an LLM or any other kind of AI.

The sheer amount of linear algebra number crunching vs some database lookups is monumental. I don’t see how an LLM could ever be as efficient as a search engine.

Search engines aren't just some database lookups, is the thing. There's actually quite a bit of linear alegbra involved in both, for page ranking especially

Anyways these sorts of comparisons make no sense to begin with, and quite obviously at the moment the worst actors cough xAI cough who are deploying massively polluting generators into residential neighborhoods are much worse than, say, Google Search

Re: Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

#44

Post by mplewis »

lukeschlather wrote: post #38
nemomarx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this why transit advocates try to reduce the need for owning a car though? I'm thinking a really good search engine would not make you reach for ai as often and so could be eco friendly that way

There are fundamental reasons public transit is always more efficient than private cars. There's no fundamental reason a really good search engine is more efficient than an LLM or any other kind of AI.

Maybe because we all know that working search is better than an LLM hands down? What are you talking about? The only reason people go to LLMs instead of Google is because Google Search has been destroyed by Sundar Pichai.

Re: Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

#45

Post by pretendgeneer »

JimDabell wrote: post #40
Insanity wrote: post #17

People in the comments seem confused about this with statements like “greenest AI is no AI” style comments. And well, obviously that’s true but it’s an apples to pears comparison. Clearly Ecosia is pushing for “people want AI” _and_ we want to make it more ecofriendly. Taking away features from users altogether is not the right answer. It’s like saying “cheapest car is no car”. It doesn’t solve the fundamental proble…

> People in the comments seem confused about this with statements like “greenest AI is no AI” style comments. And well, obviously that’s true It’s not true. AI isn’t especially environmentally unfriendly, which means that if you’re using AI then whatever activity you would otherwise be doing stands a good chance of being more environmentally unfriendly. For instance, a ChatGPT prompt uses about as much energy as watc…

> And when you have the opportunity to use human labour or AI, AI is almost certainly the greener option as well. For instance, the carbon emissions of writing and illustrating are far lower for AI than for humans:

Do you plan on killing that person to stop their emissions?

If you don't use the AI program the emissions don't happen, if you don't hire a person for a job, they still use the carbon resources.

So the comparison isn't 1000kg Co2 for a human vs 1kg Co2 for an LLM. It's 1000kg Co2 for a human vs 1001kg Co2 for an LLM.

Re: Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

#46

Post by Insanity »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #43
dented42 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sheer amount of linear algebra number crunching vs some database lookups is monumental. I don’t see how an LLM could ever be as efficient as a search engine.

Search engines aren't just some database lookups, is the thing. There's actually quite a bit of linear alegbra involved in both, for page ranking especially Anyways these sorts of comparisons make no sense to begin with, and quite obviously at the moment the worst actors cough xAI cough who are deploying massively polluting generators into residential neighborhoods are much worse than, say, Google Search

When I took linear algebra at uni in 2012, one of the examples to show practical applications in our text book was the PageRank algorithm!

Re: Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

#47

Post by Zambyte »

My prompt: tell me about the new zig io interface

Ecosia:

> The Zig IO interface is associated with Zigbee, a specification for a suite of high-level communication protocols using low-power digital radios. It is often used in IoT (Internet of Things) applications for smart home devices, such as lights, sensors, and smart locks. The Zig IO interface typically allows for seamless communication between devices, enabling automation and remote control.

> For specific details about the latest updates or features of the Zig IO interface, I recommend checking the official Zigbee Alliance website or relevant tech news sources for the most current information. If you're interested in sustainable technology or eco-friendly smart home solutions, feel free to ask!

Kagi Quick research agent:

> Zig has recently undergone significant changes to its I/O interface, with major updates introduced in version 0.15 and further enhancements planned for the upcoming 0.16.0 release. The new I/O system represents a comprehensive rework of the standard library's input/output handling, focusing on improved efficiency, clarity, and flexibility.

> The most notable changes include a complete overhaul of the `std.Io.Reader` and `std.Io.Writer` interfaces, which were revamped in a mid-2025 development release as the first step in modernizing Zig's I/O capabilities [^2]. These interfaces in Zig 0.15.1 represent a significant improvement in both efficiency and code clarity, though they require slightly more boilerplate code [^5].

> A key architectural change is that the new I/O interface is non-generic and uses a virtual function table (vtable) for dispatching function calls to concrete implementations [^4]. This approach simplifies the interface while maintaining performance. The upcoming Zig 0.16.0 will introduce new async I/O primitives, building on this reworked foundation and eventually leading to the reintroduction of asynchronous programming capabilities [^1].

> These changes position Zig's I/O system for better performance and more flexible integration with different I/O backends, representing a significant step forward in the language's systems programming capabilities [^3].

[^1]: [Zig's New Async I/O (Text Version) - Andrew Kelley](https://andrewkelley.me/post/zig-new-async-io-text-version.h...) (25%)

[^2]: [Zig's new Writer - openmymind.net](https://www.openmymind.net/Zigs-New-Writer/) (22%)

[^3]: [I'm too dumb for Zig's new IO interface](https://www.openmymind.net/Im-Too-Dumb-For-Zigs-New-IO-Inter...) (21%)

[^4]: [Zig's New Async I/O | Loris Cro's Blog](https://kristoff.it/blog/zig-new-async-io/) (17%)

[^5]: [Zig 0.15.1 I/O Overhaul: Understanding the New Reader/Writer ...](https://dev.to/bkataru/zig-0151-io-overhaul-understanding-th...) (15%)

The Ecosia AI does not seem to be grounded in search results. When using small models, this is essentially useless.

Re: Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

#48

Post by d--b »

Insanity wrote: post #17

People in the comments seem confused about this with statements like “greenest AI is no AI” style comments. And well, obviously that’s true but it’s an apples to pears comparison. Clearly Ecosia is pushing for “people want AI” _and_ we want to make it more ecofriendly. Taking away features from users altogether is not the right answer. It’s like saying “cheapest car is no car”. It doesn’t solve the fundamental proble…

Yeah, but people here also know that AI that doesn’t use vast amounts of energy is generally returning mediocre results. And mediocre results are not useful at all. So whatever you save on energy doesn’t really matter if the utility is going to zero.

Your comparison to cars is good. A cheap car will be slower and less comfortable but will get you where you want to be ultimately. That’s the core value of the car. A bad LLM may not get you anywhere. It’s more like having a cheap powerdrill that can drill through plaster but not through concrete, in the end you still want the expensive drill…

Re: Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

#49

Post by JimDabell »

pretendgeneer wrote: post #45
JimDabell wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People in the comments seem confused about this with statements like “greenest AI is no AI” style comments. And well, obviously that’s true It’s not true. AI isn’t especially environmentally unfriendly, which means that if you’re using AI then whatever activity you would otherwise be doing stands a good chance of being more environmentally unfriendly. For instance, a ChatGPT prompt uses about as much energy as watc…

> And when you have the opportunity to use human labour or AI, AI is almost certainly the greener option as well. For instance, the carbon emissions of writing and illustrating are far lower for AI than for humans: Do you plan on killing that person to stop their emissions? If you don't use the AI program the emissions don't happen, if you don't hire a person for a job, they still use the carbon resources. So the com…

Please read the source I linked to; your reply doesn’t make any sense in that context.

Re: Ecosia: The greenest AI is here

#50

Post by defrost »

JimDabell wrote: post #40
Insanity wrote: post #17

People in the comments seem confused about this with statements like “greenest AI is no AI” style comments. And well, obviously that’s true but it’s an apples to pears comparison. Clearly Ecosia is pushing for “people want AI” _and_ we want to make it more ecofriendly. Taking away features from users altogether is not the right answer. It’s like saying “cheapest car is no car”. It doesn’t solve the fundamental proble…

> People in the comments seem confused about this with statements like “greenest AI is no AI” style comments. And well, obviously that’s true It’s not true. AI isn’t especially environmentally unfriendly, which means that if you’re using AI then whatever activity you would otherwise be doing stands a good chance of being more environmentally unfriendly. For instance, a ChatGPT prompt uses about as much energy as watc…

How many tens of thousands more pages of text and image are churned out per human created page though?

Pages that would never be created were the stochastic parrot to be turned off and never squawk.

It'd save a lot of energy, water, carbon emissions to just let the already existing humans just get on with the churn.

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