Technology

The combined worldwide energy usage of ChatGPT is equivalent to about 20k American households.

Or about 10 small countries. Not even being that hyperbolic: American households are fabulously, insanely wasteful of energy.

The rest of the world (barring places like Saudi Arabia, which are rarely used as moral or socio-cultural examples the world should learn from) has done the whole 'What's the point in trying to better the world when America and China do more damage than the rest of the world combined?' debate decades ago, and we ended up deciding that we can't control the worst offenders, and can only do what we can.

Literally any moral value or standard is subject to 'but but but what's the point if you can't eradicate the problem entirely?', that's why it's such a weak fallacy. Minimising absolutely pointless destruction of non-renewable resources won't successfully save the environment tomorrow, but we can do it anyway, and if will help. We can't eradicate theft, but we can do our best to pay for things before taking them. We know that being polite in public isn't the 1 thing holding our society back from utopian perfection, but we do it anyway, because it helps.

We can all pinky promise not to murder or violently assault anyone, and pay no attention to the weirdo protesting that 'What's the point in not assaulting people when actually, cars and illness and unhealthy lifestyles do more harm', because that person is presumably just looking for an excuse to hit someone.

And yeah, long story short: using 'American households' as an example of how insignificant AI's energy usage is is kinda like saying smoking is safe because it's actually less harmful than spending 6 hours a day on a busy road in Delhi. If you don't spend 6 hours a day near busy roads in Delhi, you won't exactly think 'oh that's ok then'. And if you do, your lungs need all the help they can get and you've got all the more reason to be wary of smoking (I say this as a smoker btw).

Huge areas of Africa and the middle east are becoming uninhabited because of climate change. Those people all need food and water, and the western world does not have the resources or inclination to house and feed them all. It is almost unanimously described as the worst crisis humanity has ever faced, and the practical solution - stop wasting fossil fuels and non-renewable resources when there's a viable alternative - is so insanely easy.

Billions of lives could be saved, if everyone on the planet agreed to be mindful of energy waste. Not 'stop using energy' or 'everybody become vegan and live in houses made of recycled banana peel', just quit wasting.

But there are entire countries who don't seem to get the whole 'acting together for the betterment of humanity' thing, so that incredibly simple solution won't work. And all we can do in the meantime is to lead by example, make 'responsible consumption' a lifestyle rather than an option, and hope against hope that enough Americans and Chinese people decide to reduce their dependence on 1000 daily images of shrimp Jesus or an endless output of bullshit papers written by AI to pretend that's what science means, in time to maybe save some of the planet before wildfire season lasts 12 months a year.

Also: it's not even like you're gaining anything from constantly using AI or LLMs. Just fleeting dopamine hits while your brain cells wither. Of all the habits one could try to reduce, or be mindful of, to literally save lives and countries, anybody who honestly thinks generative AI is more important is very addicted.

Also also: it's just so shit.