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The solution to climate change is not reducing energy usage. That can, at best, delay it. The solution is to generate energy without emitting CO2. We already ha

by XorNot 2y ago

The solution to climate change is not reducing energy usage. That can, at best, delay it. The solution is to generate energy without emitting CO2. We already have the technology to do this. The conflation of supposed moral virtues versus actual, practical solutions is a huge problem with messaging in this space: there are a lot of people who don't see climate change as a problem to be solved, but as the stepping stone to bringing down capitalism or some other goal they want to use it as a bandwagon for.

Yoric 2y ago
Delay is good. Delay is necessary. While we have (some bricks of) the technology to generate/store/consume energy without emitting CO2, we haven't nearly rolled it out and we need time to do so. So, yes, by all means, any month we win by decreasing energy usage might save countless lives. > The conflation of supposed moral virtues versus actual, practical solutions is a huge problem with messaging in this space: there are a lot of people who don't see climate change as a problem to be solved, but as the stepping stone to bringing down capitalism or some other goal they want to use it as a bandwagon for. Fair point.
croes 2y ago
>The solution is to generate energy without emitting CO2. These take time and emit CO2 themselves at least in the bulding phase. And LLMs like GPT won't help us fighting climate change so we raise our energy consumption without later benefit on that matter. Maybe we first should buld the energy sources and then use them for convenience tools. Or do you want to explain our children we fucked up because we "needed" AI to write emails that are read by AI to generate a response? Much of AIs use is still just for unnecessary things just more convenient. It's still unclear if they have a productivity benefit or just changed the way we spend the same amount of time. Intel's study found no such benefit and suggests teaching the people how to use LLMs means how to tell the machine what it should do. Sounds like programming with extra steps and more ambiguity.
- XorNot 2y ago
  No matter how you slice it though, not building LLMs doesn't change the underlying equation: you're emitting CO2 to make electricity. Every new human being born once they turn on electric light is. Every new industry. Every bit of economic growth, basically. Any action which isn't the reduction of CO2 to generate electricity, or elimination, is just a delaying tactic. Even substantial population reduction would buy you what, maybe a few hundred years before atmospheric CO2 hits the same levels again? There is exactly one problem to solve with anthropogenic climate change and it's CO2 emissions. Any action which isn't directly attacking that issue is a waste of time and political resources, and demonstrably*has been a complete waste of time and effort - every victory was won on the back of superior technology (i.e. efficiency didn't just happen - LEDs happened and they're just plain better and cheaper).

by XorNot 2y ago

Yoric 2y ago

Delay is good. Delay is necessary. While we have (some bricks of) the technology to generate/store/consume energy without emitting CO2, we haven't nearly rolled it out and we need time to do so. So, yes, by all means, any month we win by decreasing energy usage might save countless lives. > The conflation of supposed moral virtues versus actual, practical solutions is a huge problem with messaging in this space: there are a lot of people who don't see climate change as a problem to be solved, but as the stepping stone to bringing down capitalism or some other goal they want to use it as a bandwagon for. Fair point.

croes 2y ago

>The solution is to generate energy without emitting CO2. These take time and emit CO2 themselves at least in the bulding phase. And LLMs like GPT won't help us fighting climate change so we raise our energy consumption without later benefit on that matter. Maybe we first should buld the energy sources and then use them for convenience tools. Or do you want to explain our children we fucked up because we "needed" AI to write emails that are read by AI to generate a response? Much of AIs use is still just for unnecessary things just more convenient. It's still unclear if they have a productivity benefit or just changed the way we spend the same amount of time. Intel's study found no such benefit and suggests teaching the people how to use LLMs means how to tell the machine what it should do. Sounds like programming with extra steps and more ambiguity.

XorNot 2y ago
No matter how you slice it though, not building LLMs doesn't change the underlying equation: you're emitting CO2 to make electricity. Every new human being born once they turn on electric light is. Every new industry. Every bit of economic growth, basically. Any action which isn't the reduction of CO2 to generate electricity, or elimination, is just a delaying tactic. Even substantial population reduction would buy you what, maybe a few hundred years before atmospheric CO2 hits the same levels again? There is exactly one problem to solve with anthropogenic climate change and it's CO2 emissions. Any action which isn't directly attacking that issue is a waste of time and political resources, and demonstrably*has been a complete waste of time and effort - every victory was won on the back of superior technology (i.e. efficiency didn't just happen - LEDs happened and they're just plain better and cheaper).