That's fair, although it gets complicated to work out numbers because we don't train many LLMs, whereas we're constantly training humans, each of whom cost the

That's fair, although it gets complicated to work out numbers because we don't train many LLMs, whereas we're constantly training humans, each of whom cost the planet tons of CO2 emissions every year... and, of course, your point that LLMs just aren't very good yet. I fear that they're good enough (or appear to be to the layperson) that execs will replace customer support staff with them, even if the outcomes overall aren't as good. I'm not as fearful. When customer support gets too expensive companies already outsource it to India. Indian customer support workers cost far less than Westerners in terms of energy and CO2 emissions, both in terms of training and ongoing costs. India is about 2T/person in CO2 emissions, compared to 15T for North Americans. And that number is averaged over the whole country. I would imagine the poorer areas of the country have much lower emissions and the bulk of CO2 comes from the wealthier big cities.