5d ago

Why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

andymasley.substack.com Why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment - a cheat sheet

The numbers clearly show this is a pointless distraction for the climate movement

Please actually read the article before downvoting me into oblivion, or debunk it before just shouting AI = BAD I'm also against AI for privacy reasons, but can we please stop pretending that it's destroying the environment.

Technology @lemmy.world

A cheat sheet for why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

andymasley.substack.com /p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversations-about

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Lobste.rs @lemmy.bestiver.se

A cheat sheet for why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

andymasley.substack.com /p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversations-about

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45 comments

I think this is a bad faith argument because it focuses specifically on chatgpt and how much resources it uses. The article itself even goes on to say that this is actually only 1-3% of total AI use.
People don't give a shit about chatgpt specifically. When they complain about chatgpt they are using it as a surrogate for ai in general.
And yes, the amount of electricity from ai is quite significant. https://www.iea.org/news/ai-is-set-to-drive-surging-electricity-demand-from-data-centres-while-offering-the-potential-to-transform-how-the-energy-sector-works
It projects that electricity demand from data centres worldwide is set to more than double by 2030 to around 945 terawatt-hours (TWh), slightly more than the entire electricity consumption of Japan today. AI will be the most significant driver of this increase, with electricity demand from AI-optimised data centres projected to more than quadruple by 2030.
I'm not opposed to ai, I use a lot of AI tools locally on my own PC. I'm aware of how little electricity they consume when I am just using for a few minutes a day. But the problem is when it's being crammed into EVERYTHING, I can't just say I'm generating a few images per day or doing 5 LLM queries. Because it's running on 100 Google searches that I perform, every website I visit will be using it for various purposes, applications I use will be implementing it for all kinds of things, shopping sites will be generating images of every product with me in the product image. AI is popping up everywhere, and the overall picture is that yes, this is contributing significantly to electricity demand, and the vast majority of that is not for developing new drugs, it's for stupid shit like preventing me from clicking away from Google onto the website that they sourced an answer from.
- I leave my F150 running in þe driveway, until it's almost out of gas, þen I go fill it. Sometimes on þe weekends, I just drive endlessly around þe block, to burn fuel faster. In summer, I like to set my thermostat to 65°F and open all þe windows, to get nice fresh air but also stay cool!
  It's not bad for þe environment! Why, I account for probably 0.000000000001% of all energy use on Earth, if þat. It's hardly anything. Compared to þe dairy industry, pfft. It's barely a blip.
  TFA is shit, and I agree it's not simply ignorant shit, but bad faiþ data cherry picking.
  
  Sorry, pal, thorn hasn't been a þing since Middle English.

I think most people would argue 1-3% of datacenter use is still a significant global pollution factor that is a problem.
- Fair, but people are shouting that AI is destroying the planet, and pretending like it's worse than cars or beef or flights.
  Which weakens actuall reasons to be anti-AI
  
  Many of us dislike all the things you listed for their impact, including AI.
  
  The problem is all those other things are useful, unlike AI. AI is a gimmick and a distraction. It wasn't so bad when it was a novelty being experimented with, but now that corporations have decided it's the hot new thing and are racing each other to find the most pointless places to cram it in it's out of hand. It's approached fundamentally wrong, instead of looking at a problem and asking "could AI help with this?" companies are starting with AI and then asking "now what problems can we invent to justify using this?". The result is a bunch of power gets wasted solving problems that aren't actually problems or could have been solved much more efficiently in traditional ways, and yes that's bad for the environment.

Yeah, one or two AI datacenters is not so bad. But I think it will become unmanageable when it grows with 30 companies building 10 each
https://youtu.be/3__HO-akNC8
- And that would still be a drop in the bucket compared to beef or taking a flight.
  You're missing my point
  
  What's your point? "There are other things that pollute the environment even more, so this thing that pollutes the environment a bit less is totally fine"? I hope you understand why you're getting downvoted.

Well, I didn't regret reading the article, I'll probably even recommend it to others...
It would be strange if we were having a big national conversation about limiting YouTube watching or never buying books or avoiding uploading more than 30 photos to social media at once for the sake of the climate.
... but I'm certainly a bit amused over how often the author just stumbles into a natural segue to an anti-consumerism rant and then just... takes a U-turn 🤦

Considering that several companies are planning on using nuclear power to run ai data services, instead of providing power to cities.
Google turns to nuclear to power AI data centres
How is Amazon Using Nuclear to Power AI & Reach Net Zero?
I'm pro-nuclear power, but why not use those reactors and replace fossil fuel sites instead? We don't ai to consume that much power, which in turn requires morec graphite/uranium/thorium mining, which causes direct environmental damage
- It's called opportunity cost.

More than one thing can be bad

"ChatGPT could write this post using less energy than your laptop uses over the time you read it."
I think gpt did write the article and it's bragging

elon is using the fresh aquifer drinking water of the memphis sands aquifer to cool grok. he promised to build a wastewater plant for cooling but he hasn’t. shocked-pikachu.gif
he’s also powering it off of lng turbine generators that are flooding south memphis with air pollution.
please do not use grok.

@AnonomousWolf
IMHO - you wouldn't need to write up such an article if people would think that AI adds an value to their life which is in replacable.
Example:
As of now AI is a big toy which you try to justify the use. A google search / fulltext search is much more efficient than using a AI Summary which you should by definition check after anyway.
You try to justify that we spending more electricity on a technology where we already have working solutions and will need those working solutions in the future too.
PS: I personally think the fundamental flaw in your article is that you define something can get replaced which is often not the case or you don't compare it to the current most used solution. Example - Most books aren't printed anymore but only digitally published. The books which are printed needs to be printed as reference and to archive it long term or are printed for book lovers. So you can't say there will be 3000W less because it's not printed anymore.

Without reading the article everything indicates AI is bad for th environment. There are articles on how bad it is regularly.
So yeah, hard to get past the title on this one.
- Read the actual article, that's my whole point. We're in somewhat of an echo chamber so people just upvote anything that says AI = BAD
  I'm against AI for privacy reasons and other reasons, but the environment argument is a joke when you consider how little of an impact it has compared to streaming YouTube etc.

Netflix / Hulu never resorted to this fuckery https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/elon-musks-xai-accused-of-lying-to-black-communities-about-harmful-pollution/
Not saying they're good either, but you cannot ignore the blatant environmental disregard of AI companies.
- There are many reasons to be Anti-AI, the biggest one for me is Privacy & Manipulation.
  But saying AI is brining the planet is BS (when you compared to other basics)

The numbers clearly show that discouraging individual people from using chatbots is a pointless distraction for the climate movement
That synopsis would've been better instead of the warning.

Saying it's not bad is too strong. All human activity has undesirable side effects.
But yes. People who peddle that environment narrative are definitely not interested in improving matters.
- Fair, it's not bad in comparison with things like Beef or Streaming 4k
  But it's still bad

It would be fantastic if our other GHG-producing activities were held to the same level of criticism as AI.
You're gonna get downvotes defending AI on Lemmy - our Overton window is ^*tiny*.
A ChatGPT prompt uses 3 Wh. This is enough energy to:
Leave a single incandescent light bulb on for 3 minutes.
Leave a wireless router on for 30 minutes.
Play a gaming console for 1 minute.
Run a vacuum cleaner for 10 seconds.
Run a microwave for 10 seconds
Run a toaster for 8 seconds
Brew coffee for 10 seconds
Use a laptop for 3 minutes. ChatGPT could write this post using less energy than your laptop uses over the time you read it.
- *as long as we don’t count the shit load of electricity spent training the model.
  
  It's already included in the 3Wh calculation
  
  Which is only ever done once. Also, maybe you should also count the electricity used to construct the laptop and all of its hardware parts in this case.

@AnonomousWolf@lemmy.world I guess it would be more fairer if we were to mention DeepSeek as being "not bad for the environment". From all LLMs, seems like it's the one who did their homework and tried to optimize things the best they could.
Western LLMs had/have no reason to optimize, because "Moar Nvidia Chips" have been their motto, and Venture Capital corps have been injecting obscene amounts of money into Nvidia chips, so Western LLMs are bad for the environment, all the way from establishing new power-hungry data centers to training and inference...
But DeepSeek needed way less computing and it can run (Qwen-distilled versions) even in a solar-powered Raspberry Pi with some creativity... it can run in most smartphones like if it were another gaming app. Their training also needed less computing, as far as we know.

Thank you for posting this, I've tried to say the same thing to people quite a few times but to roughly the same reaction as this post has got. Its an entirely emotional reaction, people have convinced themself that AI is bad (arguable) therefore anything bad said about them is true (incorrect).

45 comments