4 ms·

Disappointed with the article, especially because it uses "think of the planet" as a weak argument against this technology. > Firstly, there’s the environmenta

Disappointed with the article, especially because it uses "think of the planet" as a weak argument against this technology. > Firstly, there’s the environmental impact Their own blog contributes to climate crisis they are now crying about. We can argue someone in a developing country writing a similar article saying "all these self publishing technologists are making climate crisis worse" and it'll have a stronger point. I say this without discounting the real environmental costs associated with technology, but LLMs / AI isnt uniquely problamatic. Your latest macbook, iphone, datacenter, ssds.. all have impact.

kelseyfrog 1y ago
Correct. We have to order by impact and refrain from spending effort on all but the issue at the top of the list. If we choose to affect any lower-priority issue, it is an example of hypocriticality that de-legitimizes the whole project.
- nicce 1y ago
  If we had stayed farmers, we wouldn't have these issues. Most people would be still happy. Intelligence is both destruction and savior.
  - criddell 1y ago
    > farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population https://www.fb.org/in-the-news/modern-farmer-farmers-face-a-mental-health-crisis-talking-to-others-in-the-industry-can-help https://www.fb.org/in-the-news/modern-farmer-farmers-face-a-...
    - nicce 1y ago
      Do you think that study applies if we would go 2000 years back? World was kinda different.
  - kirubakaran 1y ago
    "Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans." - Douglas Adams
frereubu 1y ago
Your argument seems to be flattening everything so it's just the same - "everything has an impact" - but different things have different impacts, and each needs to be measured against their utility. Me ordering a coffee at my local cafe has an impact, but it's a good deal less than me driving from London to Edinburgh. The author's argument, as I read it and generally agree, is that we don't really need LLMs to get things done, but their use comes with a large environmental cost. I don't think that will stop its use, unfortunately. There's just too much capital behind them at the moment.
- zdragnar 1y ago
  We don't really need LLMs like we don't really need the internet. We don't really need that blog, nor do we really need Netflix, porn or Facebook. Individuals value things differently, so attempting to do society-wide prioritization is always going to be a reductive exercise. For example: Your local cafe doesn't need to exist at all. You could still drink coffee, you'd just have to make it yourself. That cafe is taking up space, running expensive commercial equipment, keeping things warm even when there aren't customers ordering, keeping food items cool that aren't going to be eaten, using harsh commercial chemicals for regular sanitization, possibly inefficient cooling or heating due to heavy traffic going in and out the door, so on and so forth. Imagine the environmental impact of turning all cafes into housing and nobody driving to go get a coffee.
  - frereubu 1y ago
    Again, this just feels like throwing your hands up in the air and saying "it's too hard to decide!" But we have to take decisions somehow if we're going to do anything.
    - roywiggins 1y ago
      Take one fewer hot shower a week and you've saved enough energy to power a lot of ChatGPT queries. Play one fewer hour of Minecraft. Turn off raytracing. Eat one fewer burger per month. All of those things would save more energy than forgoing a few ChatGPT conversations.
vaylian 1y ago
[flagged]
- jll29 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - jll29 1y ago
    (I thought it would be funny - in a self-referential way - to use our especially fine-tuned LLM to analyze bias in the OP in order to prove that LLMs can be useful by showing how they may be usefully applied to the OP itself.)
    - pvg 1y ago
      It's not particularly funny and generated comments are discouraged on HN https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22generated%20comments%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

kelseyfrog 1y ago

Correct. We have to order by impact and refrain from spending effort on all but the issue at the top of the list. If we choose to affect any lower-priority issue, it is an example of hypocriticality that de-legitimizes the whole project.

nicce 1y ago
If we had stayed farmers, we wouldn't have these issues. Most people would be still happy. Intelligence is both destruction and savior.
- criddell 1y ago
  > farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population https://www.fb.org/in-the-news/modern-farmer-farmers-face-a-mental-health-crisis-talking-to-others-in-the-industry-can-help https://www.fb.org/in-the-news/modern-farmer-farmers-face-a-...
  - nicce 1y ago
    Do you think that study applies if we would go 2000 years back? World was kinda different.
- kirubakaran 1y ago
  "Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans." - Douglas Adams

frereubu 1y ago

Your argument seems to be flattening everything so it's just the same - "everything has an impact" - but different things have different impacts, and each needs to be measured against their utility. Me ordering a coffee at my local cafe has an impact, but it's a good deal less than me driving from London to Edinburgh. The author's argument, as I read it and generally agree, is that we don't really need LLMs to get things done, but their use comes with a large environmental cost. I don't think that will stop its use, unfortunately. There's just too much capital behind them at the moment.

zdragnar 1y ago
We don't really need LLMs like we don't really need the internet. We don't really need that blog, nor do we really need Netflix, porn or Facebook. Individuals value things differently, so attempting to do society-wide prioritization is always going to be a reductive exercise. For example: Your local cafe doesn't need to exist at all. You could still drink coffee, you'd just have to make it yourself. That cafe is taking up space, running expensive commercial equipment, keeping things warm even when there aren't customers ordering, keeping food items cool that aren't going to be eaten, using harsh commercial chemicals for regular sanitization, possibly inefficient cooling or heating due to heavy traffic going in and out the door, so on and so forth. Imagine the environmental impact of turning all cafes into housing and nobody driving to go get a coffee.
- frereubu 1y ago
  Again, this just feels like throwing your hands up in the air and saying "it's too hard to decide!" But we have to take decisions somehow if we're going to do anything.
  - roywiggins 1y ago
    Take one fewer hot shower a week and you've saved enough energy to power a lot of ChatGPT queries. Play one fewer hour of Minecraft. Turn off raytracing. Eat one fewer burger per month. All of those things would save more energy than forgoing a few ChatGPT conversations.

vaylian 1y ago

[flagged]

jll29 1y ago
[flagged]
- jll29 1y ago
  (I thought it would be funny - in a self-referential way - to use our especially fine-tuned LLM to analyze bias in the OP in order to prove that LLMs can be useful by showing how they may be usefully applied to the OP itself.)
  - pvg 1y ago
    It's not particularly funny and generated comments are discouraged on HN https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22generated%20comments%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]