It follows that assurances to the effect that the AI...

It follows that assurances to the effect that the AI industry will eventually find ways to shrink the carbon footprint of their technology are entirely untrustworthy. Any improvements that might lower the emissions caused by AI processing are bound to be treated by the industry as excess capacity, which they will promptly find ways to fill, excusing the increasing size of the footprint the same way they excuse it now: by promising that they'll find ways to shrink it in the future.

Like 6 June at 18:05 | Open on merveilles.town

2 comments

L. Rhodes

This is true in pretty much every sector of consumer tech, btw. Indie games typically lag behind the leading edge of technical specifications. Generally speaking, it's the AAA games that are requiring you to upgrade to the latest console or chip. The giant, cinematic, hyper-detailed experiences they're selling you are as much about filling excess capacity as they are about world building. I haven't seen any studies, but logically, it follows that indie games are better for the environment.

6 June at 18:16 | Open on merveilles.town

datarama

@lrhodes The internet is a better example of the Jevons paradox than the steam engines Jevons formulated it about.

Smartphones are much more power-efficient than big clunky desktop PCs. But the internet of smartphones is also much more power-hungry than the internet of desktop PCs was.

6 June at 18:26 | Open on hachyderm.io