Yes. We obviously aren’t responsible enough to handle these devices as it is now. We are eroding our planet of its life by causing drastic changes to our climate, caused by burning up massive amounts of fossil fuels to power our “AI”. This is gross and detestable, and we should reverse course immediately until we can find better alternatives to handle semiconductor manufacturing processes, and find better ways to power these devices. Not stopping now will only add more Co2 emissions to our planet’s atmosphere, which will increase global temperatures.
What you’re suggesting is “pennywise and pound foolish” if your goal is CO2 reduction. Semiconductors and Rare Earth metals are required for our best weapons against CO2 emissions, those being wind turbines and PV solar panels.
We are eroding our planet of its life by causing drastic changes to our climate, caused by burning up massive amounts of fossil fuels to power our “AI”.
Energy demands are far FAR larger than the minuscule (by comparison to other energy users) AI data center waste.
Not stopping now will only add more Co2 emissions to our planet’s atmosphere, which will increase global temperatures.
Fossil fuel lovers will back you 100% on reduction of semiconductors as it means a lock-in for electricity generation to mostly fossil fuels.
I am not going to lie, i just don’t have the energy to put together all the research that has been done on the energy consumption of AI neural networks for you. They are consuming more energy than entire States in the USA use. Then theres cryptocurrency. Then there is the fact that we have global storefronts, distributers, resellers, supermarkets, and food production that is designed around creating hyper capitalist worlds of consumerism that only exists because it is so god damn easy to add to cart and have one of everything.
You will never need one of everything. We don’t need to produce just to produce. We aren’t sharing. We are hoarding. We are stashing. Products are assembled and put on store shelves at such an unsustainable rate that there isn’t enough time or energy to figure out how to properly reuse or recycle them or their byproducts. The lowest quality, most pollutive products pile up. They pile up in landfills, along roads, and in oceans. Hell, there are microplastics in the most remote regions planet earth. Its filthy and disgusting. You cant even find clean water in the wild anymore.
All because we have a way to tap 3 buttons and get delivered something new to consume.
Hyper fucking capitalism only becomes more hyper thanks to rare earth metals (which also are just tossed in the trash once their use is up).
I am not going to lie, i just don’t have the energy to put together all the research that has been done on the energy consumption of AI neural networks for you.
I did all that before i answered you because I wanted to make sure my thinking was accurate.
Total electricity (not energy, because energy is oil, gas, coal, etc, tool, just talking electricity here) used by all data centers in the USA for all computing is about 5% of the total USA electricity consumption. source.
They are consuming more energy than entire States in the USA use.
True, but I’m not sure what relevance that has. Lots and LOTS of industries use way WAY more electricity:
“The industrial sector accounts for 33% of all the electricity used in the world (the largest sector for energy consumption is residential housing, followed by commercial businesses). According to the U.S Energy Information Administration, in the United States, 77% of all industrial electricity goes to manufacturing, 12% to mining, 7% to construction, and 5% to agriculture. From the list of high energy consumption industries in manufacturing, chemicals account for 37%, followed by petroleum and coal products at 22%, paper and paper products at 11%, primary metals 8% and the remainder is made up of food, non-metallic metals and all other categories.”
I’ll agree its a waste, but of the 4.4% used by ALL datacenters 1.5% of that is crypto.
AI, by itself, last year was about 1% of the 4.4%.
If you’re rationally focused on CO2 reduction, all of compute is a drop in the bucket compared to a number of heavy industries. Again, my numbers here was only about electricity, which does have CO2 concerns, but lots of those other industries use way more electricity in addition to other CO2 producing energy sources (like natural gas/coal/oil, etc).
So if your true goal and concern is CO2 reduction, your priorities should be going after the much bigger fish.
Thats the thing. Compute ENABLES all of that industry. Compute ENABLES all that residential energy usage. Compute ENABLES commercial businesses to operate.
Those sources are referring to direct energy usage, but isn’t accounting for indirect production enabled by that technology.
Im not saying there aren’t other fights to battle. All im saying is halt this nonsense until we can figure out how to clean planet Earth of all the crap we have already produced. Piling on isn’t helping at all. Leave those rare earth metals in the ground and figure out how to recycle them ones we have already mined. Figure out how to pull from landfills all that forgotten ewaste.
Its going to take time and effort. Its not going to be profitable. Its not going to fast.
Personally, I believe every company who produces a product must also provide a way to reuse, recycle, or return each and every product they sell. Phone manufacturers, solar panel fabricators, and wind turbine manufacturers should be the ones leading the charge on this. It shouldn’t be up to any third party service, government, or country to have that burden.
Thats the thing. Compute ENABLES all of that industry. Compute ENABLES all that residential energy usage. Compute ENABLES commercial businesses to operate.
Those sources are referring to direct energy usage, but isn’t accounting for indirect production enabled by that technology.
I agree with this, but this is why I asked you the second question in my original post to you. That question was “And all the services you consume that use these?”
So if you’re saying “yes” to that too, then you’re essentially wanting to roll the clock back to life back in 1940 or so. The consequences on human life will be devastating if we do that. It may be cutting the human population on Earth in half. A good chunk of what compute enables is human life.
Its not rolling back the clock imo. We have already pulled out those resources. They are in our possession. We don’t need to mine fresh rare earth metals.
TIL a steady transfer of rare earth metals from China is necessary for all of the computers of today to continue working. Is it like a subscription. Rare earth pass, subscribe now.
It won’t be hermitage for us, it will likely be death from starvation and disease. Global supply chains, including those for food production and distribution required modern technology. If you’re going back to pre-computer world you have to roll the clock back for how much of a population the world was able to support. The first transistor was made in 1947, which is arguably the beginning of modern electronics (a few vacuum tube computers existed before this time).
World population a few years later in 1951 was 2,536,927,035. The world population today is 8,231,613,070. So your suggested change will kill off about 5,694,686,035. Even Marvel’s Thanos was only trying to kill off half of the population, and here you are suggesting Thanos wasn’t going far enough where you want about 70% of everyone dead.
To think either one of use would survive is hubris.
Oh no, that argument about current capabilities ruins my whole schtick, let me pick up a PS so I can counter argue a red herring…
You must be from the US
edit: more than half of the people in the world live in Africa/Asia, I don’t see those regions being particularly affected by rare earth metal restrictions. Microsoft, OpenAI and Apple et al might be fucked though, and that means that scenario would be a good thing.
Good. Stop mining this and leave it alone.
Are you willing to give up all the products that need these? And all the services you consume that use these?
Yes. We obviously aren’t responsible enough to handle these devices as it is now. We are eroding our planet of its life by causing drastic changes to our climate, caused by burning up massive amounts of fossil fuels to power our “AI”. This is gross and detestable, and we should reverse course immediately until we can find better alternatives to handle semiconductor manufacturing processes, and find better ways to power these devices. Not stopping now will only add more Co2 emissions to our planet’s atmosphere, which will increase global temperatures.
What you’re suggesting is “pennywise and pound foolish” if your goal is CO2 reduction. Semiconductors and Rare Earth metals are required for our best weapons against CO2 emissions, those being wind turbines and PV solar panels.
Energy demands are far FAR larger than the minuscule (by comparison to other energy users) AI data center waste.
Fossil fuel lovers will back you 100% on reduction of semiconductors as it means a lock-in for electricity generation to mostly fossil fuels.
I am not going to lie, i just don’t have the energy to put together all the research that has been done on the energy consumption of AI neural networks for you. They are consuming more energy than entire States in the USA use. Then theres cryptocurrency. Then there is the fact that we have global storefronts, distributers, resellers, supermarkets, and food production that is designed around creating hyper capitalist worlds of consumerism that only exists because it is so god damn easy to add to cart and have one of everything.
You will never need one of everything. We don’t need to produce just to produce. We aren’t sharing. We are hoarding. We are stashing. Products are assembled and put on store shelves at such an unsustainable rate that there isn’t enough time or energy to figure out how to properly reuse or recycle them or their byproducts. The lowest quality, most pollutive products pile up. They pile up in landfills, along roads, and in oceans. Hell, there are microplastics in the most remote regions planet earth. Its filthy and disgusting. You cant even find clean water in the wild anymore.
All because we have a way to tap 3 buttons and get delivered something new to consume.
Hyper fucking capitalism only becomes more hyper thanks to rare earth metals (which also are just tossed in the trash once their use is up).
I did all that before i answered you because I wanted to make sure my thinking was accurate.
Total electricity (not energy, because energy is oil, gas, coal, etc, tool, just talking electricity here) used by all data centers in the USA for all computing is about 5% of the total USA electricity consumption. source.
True, but I’m not sure what relevance that has. Lots and LOTS of industries use way WAY more electricity:
“The industrial sector accounts for 33% of all the electricity used in the world (the largest sector for energy consumption is residential housing, followed by commercial businesses). According to the U.S Energy Information Administration, in the United States, 77% of all industrial electricity goes to manufacturing, 12% to mining, 7% to construction, and 5% to agriculture. From the list of high energy consumption industries in manufacturing, chemicals account for 37%, followed by petroleum and coal products at 22%, paper and paper products at 11%, primary metals 8% and the remainder is made up of food, non-metallic metals and all other categories.”
source
I’ll agree its a waste, but of the 4.4% used by ALL datacenters 1.5% of that is crypto.
AI, by itself, last year was about 1% of the 4.4%.
If you’re rationally focused on CO2 reduction, all of compute is a drop in the bucket compared to a number of heavy industries. Again, my numbers here was only about electricity, which does have CO2 concerns, but lots of those other industries use way more electricity in addition to other CO2 producing energy sources (like natural gas/coal/oil, etc).
So if your true goal and concern is CO2 reduction, your priorities should be going after the much bigger fish.
Thats the thing. Compute ENABLES all of that industry. Compute ENABLES all that residential energy usage. Compute ENABLES commercial businesses to operate.
Those sources are referring to direct energy usage, but isn’t accounting for indirect production enabled by that technology.
Im not saying there aren’t other fights to battle. All im saying is halt this nonsense until we can figure out how to clean planet Earth of all the crap we have already produced. Piling on isn’t helping at all. Leave those rare earth metals in the ground and figure out how to recycle them ones we have already mined. Figure out how to pull from landfills all that forgotten ewaste.
Its going to take time and effort. Its not going to be profitable. Its not going to fast.
Personally, I believe every company who produces a product must also provide a way to reuse, recycle, or return each and every product they sell. Phone manufacturers, solar panel fabricators, and wind turbine manufacturers should be the ones leading the charge on this. It shouldn’t be up to any third party service, government, or country to have that burden.
I agree with this, but this is why I asked you the second question in my original post to you. That question was “And all the services you consume that use these?”
So if you’re saying “yes” to that too, then you’re essentially wanting to roll the clock back to life back in 1940 or so. The consequences on human life will be devastating if we do that. It may be cutting the human population on Earth in half. A good chunk of what compute enables is human life.
Its not rolling back the clock imo. We have already pulled out those resources. They are in our possession. We don’t need to mine fresh rare earth metals.
Yes.
So no modern electronics or computers then? So back to maybe basic transistors at best? You’re cool with that?
TIL a steady transfer of rare earth metals from China is necessary for all of the computers of today to continue working. Is it like a subscription. Rare earth pass, subscribe now.
Otherwise, ya, hermit life FTW
It won’t be hermitage for us, it will likely be death from starvation and disease. Global supply chains, including those for food production and distribution required modern technology. If you’re going back to pre-computer world you have to roll the clock back for how much of a population the world was able to support. The first transistor was made in 1947, which is arguably the beginning of modern electronics (a few vacuum tube computers existed before this time).
World population a few years later in 1951 was 2,536,927,035. The world population today is 8,231,613,070. So your suggested change will kill off about 5,694,686,035. Even Marvel’s Thanos was only trying to kill off half of the population, and here you are suggesting Thanos wasn’t going far enough where you want about 70% of everyone dead.
To think either one of use would survive is hubris.
Nice MO (besides the voting manipulation)
Oh no, that argument about current capabilities ruins my whole schtick, let me pick up a PS so I can counter argue a red herring…
You must be from the US
edit: more than half of the people in the world live in Africa/Asia, I don’t see those regions being particularly affected by rare earth metal restrictions. Microsoft, OpenAI and Apple et al might be fucked though, and that means that scenario would be a good thing.