A report from Morgan Stanley suggests the datacenter industry is on track to emit 2.5 billion tons by 2030, which is three times higher than the predictions if generative AI had not come into play.
The extra demand from GenAI will reportedly lead to a rise in emissions from 200 million tons this year to 600 million tons by 2030, thanks largely to the construction of more data centers to keep up with the demand for cloud services.
Maybe the Butlerian Jihad had a point.
I am curious who buys generative AI services? The consumers seem to be people making memes or questionable porn with free services. It can’t prepare food, unblock drains or tile a bathroom. You can’t use it for anything like medicine, law or engineering where you would be professionally liable if it fucks up. How is it sustainable?
Few months ago it was bitcoin mining. They both need curtailment for other reasons as well.
A few years ago was the Cryptomining today the IA
Consider this: climate change is being accelerated at a time when we are overdue to reduce it and what we are getting out of it is plagiarism and wrong answers.