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If you offload data processing to the end user, then your data center uses less energy on paper. The washing part is that work is still being done and spending

If you offload data processing to the end user, then your data center uses less energy on paper. The washing part is that work is still being done and spending energy, just outside of the data center.

dyauspitr 2y ago
Which honestly is still good for the environment to have the work distributed across the entire electricity grid. That work needs to be done anyways and Apple is doing it in the cleanest way possible. What’s an alternative in your mind, just don’t do the processing? That sounds like making progress towards being green. If you’re making claims of green washing you need to be able to back it up with what alternative would actually be “green”.
- ironmagma 2y ago
  I didn't make any claims, I just explained what the parent was saying. There could be multiple ways to make it more green: one being not doing the processing, or another perhaps just optimizing the work being done. But actually, no, you don't need a viable way to be green in order to call greenwashing "greenwashing." It can just be greenwashing, with no alternative that is actually green.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > Which honestly is still good for the environment to have the work distributed across the entire electricity grid. Sometimes, but parallelization has a cost. The power consumption from 400,000,000 iPhones downloading a 2gb LLM is not negligible, probably more than what you'd consume running it as a REST API on a remote server. Not to mention slower.
  - peapicker 2y ago
    Downloading 2gb of anything on my iPhone via wifi from my in-home gigabit fiber barely puts a dent in my battery life let alone much time. The random ads in most phone games are much worse on my battery life.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      Yeah it's a shame that mobile games are shit when console and PC gaming gets taken so serious by comparison. If you want to blame that on developers and not Apple's stupid-ass policies stopping you from emulating real games, be my guest. That's a take I'd love to hear. Keep downloadin' those ads. This is what Apple wants from you, a helpless and docile revenue stream. Think Different or stay mad.
      - peapicker 2y ago
        Blame? Simply saying downloading 2gb isn’t the power consumption hit you seem to think it is. Not much of a gamer anyway, just an observation when I tried a couple apparently dodgy games. Not sure why your reply wasn’t related to your original comment. Felt rather knee-jerk reactionary to me instead. Oh well.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  > Which honestly is still good for the environment to have the work distributed across the entire electricity grid. This doesn't make any sense. > If you’re making claims of green washing you need to be able to back it up with what alternative would actually be “green”. Sometimes there isn't an alternative. In which case you don't get to look green, sorry. The person critiquing greenwashing doesn't need to give an alternative, why would that be their job? They're just evaluating whether it's real or fake. Though in this case using renewable energy can help.
  - nozzlegear 2y ago
    > Sometimes there isn't an alternative. In which case you don't get to look green, sorry. The person critiquing greenwashing doesn't need to give an alternative, why would that be their job? They're just evaluating whether it's real or fake. Baselessly calling every greening and sustainability effort “greenwashing”, especially when there’s practically no thought put into what the alternative might be, is trite and borderline intellectually dishonest. They don’t want to have a conversation about how it could be improved, they just want to interject “haha that’s stupid, corporations are fooling all of you sheeple” from their place of moral superiority. This shit is so played out.
    - dyauspitr 2y ago
      This is what I wanted to get across but you said it so much better.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      > Baselessly calling every greening and sustainability effort “greenwashing”, especially when there’s practically no thought put into what the alternative might be Baseless? The foundation of this accusation is rock solid. Offloading the exact same computation to another person so your energy numbers look better is not a greening or sustainability effort. Fake green should always be called greenwashing. You don't need to suggest an improvement to call out something that is completely fake. The faker doesn't get to demand a "conversation". You've seen a bunch of people be incorrectly dismissive and decided that dismissiveness is automatically wrong. It's not. For an extreme example, imagine a company installs a "pollution-preventing boulder" at their HQ. It's very valid to call that greenwashing and walk away. Don't let them get PR for nothing. If they were actually trying, and made a mistake, suggest a fix. But you can't fix fake.

dyauspitr 2y ago

Which honestly is still good for the environment to have the work distributed across the entire electricity grid. That work needs to be done anyways and Apple is doing it in the cleanest way possible. What’s an alternative in your mind, just don’t do the processing? That sounds like making progress towards being green. If you’re making claims of green washing you need to be able to back it up with what alternative would actually be “green”.

ironmagma 2y ago
I didn't make any claims, I just explained what the parent was saying. There could be multiple ways to make it more green: one being not doing the processing, or another perhaps just optimizing the work being done. But actually, no, you don't need a viable way to be green in order to call greenwashing "greenwashing." It can just be greenwashing, with no alternative that is actually green.
talldayo 2y ago
> Which honestly is still good for the environment to have the work distributed across the entire electricity grid. Sometimes, but parallelization has a cost. The power consumption from 400,000,000 iPhones downloading a 2gb LLM is not negligible, probably more than what you'd consume running it as a REST API on a remote server. Not to mention slower.
- peapicker 2y ago
  Downloading 2gb of anything on my iPhone via wifi from my in-home gigabit fiber barely puts a dent in my battery life let alone much time. The random ads in most phone games are much worse on my battery life.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    Yeah it's a shame that mobile games are shit when console and PC gaming gets taken so serious by comparison. If you want to blame that on developers and not Apple's stupid-ass policies stopping you from emulating real games, be my guest. That's a take I'd love to hear. Keep downloadin' those ads. This is what Apple wants from you, a helpless and docile revenue stream. Think Different or stay mad.
    - peapicker 2y ago
      Blame? Simply saying downloading 2gb isn’t the power consumption hit you seem to think it is. Not much of a gamer anyway, just an observation when I tried a couple apparently dodgy games. Not sure why your reply wasn’t related to your original comment. Felt rather knee-jerk reactionary to me instead. Oh well.
Dylan16807 2y ago
> Which honestly is still good for the environment to have the work distributed across the entire electricity grid. This doesn't make any sense. > If you’re making claims of green washing you need to be able to back it up with what alternative would actually be “green”. Sometimes there isn't an alternative. In which case you don't get to look green, sorry. The person critiquing greenwashing doesn't need to give an alternative, why would that be their job? They're just evaluating whether it's real or fake. Though in this case using renewable energy can help.
- nozzlegear 2y ago
  > Sometimes there isn't an alternative. In which case you don't get to look green, sorry. The person critiquing greenwashing doesn't need to give an alternative, why would that be their job? They're just evaluating whether it's real or fake. Baselessly calling every greening and sustainability effort “greenwashing”, especially when there’s practically no thought put into what the alternative might be, is trite and borderline intellectually dishonest. They don’t want to have a conversation about how it could be improved, they just want to interject “haha that’s stupid, corporations are fooling all of you sheeple” from their place of moral superiority. This shit is so played out.
  - dyauspitr 2y ago
    This is what I wanted to get across but you said it so much better.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    > Baselessly calling every greening and sustainability effort “greenwashing”, especially when there’s practically no thought put into what the alternative might be Baseless? The foundation of this accusation is rock solid. Offloading the exact same computation to another person so your energy numbers look better is not a greening or sustainability effort. Fake green should always be called greenwashing. You don't need to suggest an improvement to call out something that is completely fake. The faker doesn't get to demand a "conversation". You've seen a bunch of people be incorrectly dismissive and decided that dismissiveness is automatically wrong. It's not. For an extreme example, imagine a company installs a "pollution-preventing boulder" at their HQ. It's very valid to call that greenwashing and walk away. Don't let them get PR for nothing. If they were actually trying, and made a mistake, suggest a fix. But you can't fix fake.