• Ace T'Ken@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    “Oh, nice!” - Companies haphazardly adding AI into everything whether you want it or not and eating up three times this energy produced for short-term shareholder gain.

    • YungOnions@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Doesn’t really matter. The issue is the emissions the energy used currently makes. If the energy these companies are using to make an AI app for your light bulbs or whatever is emission free then who cares?

      • Ace T'Ken@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        I see what you mean, but energy isn’t currently free, and as we built more headroom, crypto and AI have simply eaten up that headroom. Don’t take my word for it, simply look at the statistics on how much more energy we are using than 10 years ago, and then look at corporate energy usage now on those two things. Renewables haven’t kept up because large corporations keep eating more and more. In fact, governments have had to **de-**decomission a few coal plants because the energy usage was so high. Here’s an article on one of them that is supporting a massive crypto farm.

        Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely 100% glad that the energy is not all coming from coal plants anymore, but also it isn’t like none of it is.

        And no energy is emission free. You still have to pay the environmental cost to create and maintain the equipment gathering the energy in the first place.

        In short, renewables are great. Corporate overusage of energy is not, especially for incredibly selfish gain like crypto and “AI”. I’m not going to cheer for the shares at corporations to be higher simply because we have renewables offsetting a tiny bit of the massive power they suck up.