Google's AI Overviews must create entirely new information in response to a search query. That costs an estimated *30 times* more energy than simply extracting information from a source through a traditional search. 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/what... by @parshallison.bsky.social
I want people to go after AI for the bullshit God complex its proponents have, for the insane concentration of power, for the overselling and underdelivering, and for the insane libertarianism that is driving the whole industry from the top.
Being wrong will only weaken the argument.
I'd like to apologize for the use of stigmatizing language here. We are learning to be better, and I certainly am not there yet. Please retweet the following tweet which says the same ideas but more clearly.
I want people to go after AI for the bullshit God complex its proponents have, for the ridiculous concentration of power, for the overselling and underdelivering, and for the toxic libertarianism that is driving the whole industry from the top.
Being wrong will only weaken the argument.
Energy is not actually a good argument against AI. We probably can't make enough chips to make it a good argument: we sure won't for the next few years. We'd need an enormous buildout of semiconductor fabrication facilities, and that's not happening. Even the energy sector's buying into the hype.
Cars, fossil fuel power plants, planes, agriculture, and industrial processes strongly dominate the carbon budget of the world, which we are blowing through like nobody's business. Maybe save some wrath for the things that are actually destroying the planet?
References: IPCC reports 1 through 6.