posted in Technology
The Pollution Being Churned Out by AI Data Centers Is So Severe That It's Almost Incomprehensible
futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/pollution-ai-data-centers-severe
Cornell researchers found that at the current rate of AI growth, the burgeoning industry could represent 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030
The United States emitted 4.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2024.
So by 2030 the AI industry CO2 release might be 0.9% of total US emissions.
That ‘almost’ in “Almost Incomprehensible” is doing a lot of work there.
.9% from a single source is RIDICULOUS though
Ok how much is beef farming accountable for
Replying to @ripcord@lemmy.world
A huge amount too, 37.9%
But more than one thing can be bad a time, a novel idea, I know
And how many beef farms are there compared to data centers? A lot of a lot more.
If a tiny amount of physical space can do such a large amount of pollution, that’s a worry, when the plan is to increase the amount of them.
Well, sure, but when everyone loses their fucking minds about the tiniest thing, that even requires us to buy all the lies from billionaires about how much the build out will be, while having never done anything about the biggest thing they could personally change, it starts sounding mightily hypocritical.
It seems like the personal responsibility to boycott polluting and unnecessary industries is limited to whatever doesn’t require any personal effort from the person speaking.
Napkin math:
- 40% of americans are very or extremely concerned about AIs environmental impact
- To save 34 million tonnes of CO2e, you need about 5.2 million vegans from now until 2030
- So only 5% of ONLY the complainers would need to go vegan to make up for this “tremendous” impact
- That’s 2% of all americans
That’s the thing we’re even attacking random strangers online for. The thing that we pretend is going to bring about the end times. But sure, veganism is the extreme position…
By the way, what other resources are we saving?
- Water — about 8.8 trillion gallons (~33 billion m³)
- Land — around 1–1.5 million acres of forest/land
- Animals — roughly 8 billion animals including fish and shellfish
Replying to @r1veRRR@feddit.org
More than one thing can be bad.
Why don’t we do both? Less AI, Less Meat
Also, I’m not American, don’t insult me by assuming I’m one
Or, just eat less meat and you can still have AI
Sounds like a bad solution to me
or have double meat and no ai.
Bad for heart health, unless it’s chicken which already has much lower emissions in the first place
AI is bad for your brain and society, so there’s that.
AI is great for society. Just because it’s still in its early years doesn’t mean we won’t have better uses for it later.
Sure, just handwave the damage and fast forward a century.
That’s the only way we can get out of having to do boring, repetitive jobs literately forever until the end of time.
Replying to @iopq@lemmy.world
Yeah such as (checks notes) Art, Music, Writing and joy, so we can (checks notes) be the condom between Claude and Production, be a babysitter for a stupid AI, and have our livelihoods destroyed.
I love that
Not everyone likes AI art or music. I have no qualms about AI email spam. I am cheering for the “corporate email marketing” team to be eliminated as a position
Replying to @iopq@lemmy.world
Well yeah, that’s cause you’re a shill with no sense of taste and bad opinions
Ah, you’re just a dipshit, fair
So less food variety and I get trash for the trade, are you the White run merchant buying any random crap the Dragonborn drags in by any chance?
Replying to @vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
Listen, I didn’t say you can’t ever eat meat. Just eat a single patty hamburger instead of a double. It’s not less food variety, it’s called not gorging yourself on things that are bad for your heart health.
Dude I barely eat half the time, regardless it’s a piss poor trade given how AI is quite literally worthless to me. It could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn’t notice if no one talked about it at least for the shit that these data centers are for. For all the resources dumped into this dumbfuck AI race we could’ve done damned near anything else and have gotten more value for it with a fraction of the economic and environmental cost, even a bridge to nowhere has better utility.
So how’s bout we go down the have no AI and do literally anything else bargain.
It’s useless to you, but not to other people. Libraries are useless to me because I pirate books, but I’m not going to say it’s a waste
Where do you think the pirated books come from?
Usually library copies
Usually the new releases are from people who personally bought them, not people who wait for them to be put in a library.
Last few physical books I read I just bought because they were rare
Replying to @iopq@lemmy.world
Oh I forgotten y’all are Americans, where your libraries have to wait for books instead of getting a copy pretty much immediately