AI boom has caused same CO2 emissions in 2025 as New York City, report claims
Study author says tech companies are reaping benefits of artificial intelligence age but society is left to pay cost
Honestly, I would’ve guessed more
True, but let's not forget New York is fucking huge and the people are not really known for being energy savers.
Not talking about Joe with his hot dog stand, but the other dude Jeffrey with the private helicopter, jet and the yacht.
if they are still building data centers, it would most likely eclipse certain emissions. they should also pair it with how much water they are consuming.
Fuck ai.
The figures show the estimated greenhouse gas emissions from AI use are also now equivalent to more than 8% of global aviation emissions. His study used technology companies’ own reporting and he called for stricter requirements for them to be more transparent about their climate impact. “The environmental cost of this is pretty huge in absolute terms,” he said. “At the moment society is paying for these costs, not the tech companies. The question is: is that fair? If they are reaping the benefits of this technology, why should they not be paying some of the costs?”
So that's actually not that much? After everybody was screaming that AI is boiling the world, 8% of global aviation emissions is kind of low. And you might hate AI, but it is really more useful than Katie from Sales getting skin cancer on a beach in Thailand or that dude getting drunk on Mallorca or whatever those billionaires are doing in their private jets
I hate both the AI bubble (not the science behind it) and private jets and billionaires if that makes you feel better.
Also, global aviation serves an extremely useful function. Not sure that compares to fancy code autocomplete and media generation that either invalidates digital evidence in legal courts or looks like an insult to life itself.
Also, global aviation serves an extremely useful function. Not sure that compares to fancy code autocomplete and media generation that either invalidates digital evidence in legal courts or looks like an insult to life itself.
Isn't it both? There are great use cases for global aviation (like visiting your family back home) and bad use cases (like sex tourism in a third world country). There are also great things you can do with AI and bad things.
As far as I can understand, that number refers to current electricity usage. So the actual energy cost is significantly higher and it's currently growing at a rapid pace.
Also what's with the whataboutism? Aviation emissions are a huge problem. We don't use it as a bar for whether something is significant or not.
And it's self-reported by the datacenters. I don't want to just say that their numbers aren't reliable, but they have a vested interest in downplaying their impact.
These are datacenters that get approval to use certain power plant styles with pollution capture technology installed that are then building more generators than approved and installing none of the pollution capture tech. So extra pollution and none of the mitigation.
it is really more useful than Katie from Sales getting skin cancer on a beach in Thailand or that...
A large chunk of air transport is also freight. And business. And regular domestic travel for people going from A to B, travel that doesn't include holidays for Kate or that drunk dude in Mallorca.
And when you look at those uses, AI is still running a pretty distant second place.
8% of total global aviation emissions doesn't put it in second place. It's not even in the top 100. I don't think it ever will be... Because building huge data centers takes years and by the time there's enough data centers to make a huge dent, the previous AI data centers will have been used to make fusion power a reality.
Today's fusion reactor designs were all made thanks to AI. The kind running in big data centers.
It takes a lot of computing power to simulate fusion reactor designs!
It would be higher if they counted the on-site generators.
You could close down all the AI data centres, all the crypto mining farms, all the private jets, and eliminate all the billionaires…and it would be a rounding error in global greenhouse emissions.
The vast majority of emissions come from the fact that 8 billion people exist and need food, transport, heating/cooling, and industries to support their lifestyles.
The focus should be on building towards renewable ways to support whatever we want to do. Purity tests around the worthiness of types of energy use is just a distraction.
Why not both?
Yep.
There's tons of great reasons to hate AI. Tech Bros. Spam in every nook and cranny.
...But the power/water use has always been overblown. US tech is particularly sloppy about it, setting up generators and evaporators in cities, running huge training runs without proper optimization, but thats FOMO, impatience, and Tech Bro Evangelism more than a fundamental characteristic. It doesn't have to be that way, and I'd wager they can't sustain it long.
