3 ms·
I agree. re: energy and other resource use: the analogy I like is with driving cars: we use cars for transportation knowing the environmental costs so we don’t
by mark_l_watson 11mo ago
I agree. re: energy and other resource use: the analogy I like is with driving cars: we use cars for transportation knowing the environmental costs so we don’t usually just go on two hour drives for the fun of it, rather we drive to get to work, go shopping. I use Gemini 3 but only in specific high value use cases. When I use commercial models I think a little about the societal costs.
In the USA we have lost the thread here: we don’t maximize the use of small tuned models throughout society and industry, instead we use the pursuit of advanced AI as a distraction to the reality that our economy and competitiveness are failing.
- spider-mario 11mo agoMost of the energy for AI does not go into chatbots. Using Gemini is not remotely close to driving a car for 2 hours. If a prompt is 0.3 Wh (https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/measuring-the-environmental-impact-of-ai-inference/ https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/measur..., https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversations-about https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversa...), each prompt is closer to using an e-bike for 50 metres. You could have your morning shower 1°C less hot and save enough energy for about 200 prompts (assuming 50 litres per shower). (Or skip the shower altogether and save thousands of prompts.)
- mark_l_watson 11mo ago+1 interesting
- collinmanderson 11mo agoI think it's also worth comparing to the CO2 impact of consuming meat, especially beef, which is pretty high. (It's the training, not the inference, that's the biggest energy usage.)