4 ms·

AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating, construction and shipping. It uses a bunch of energy, but not so much compared to moving yourself around in

AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating, construction and shipping. It uses a bunch of energy, but not so much compared to moving yourself around in a car of plane.

pjmlp 7mo ago
A bunch of energy, water and Earth rare materials, nothing really to care about.
bluGill 7mo ago
It is also much more likely to use renewable energy. Data centers look at the local energy mix when planning where to put one. (though they are perhaps taking energy that would otherwise be shipped to a different city/state)
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- valiant55 7mo ago
  This is definitely not always the case[0], let's not pretend these companies give a fuck about the communities in which their data centers operate[1]. 0: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-musk-xai-datacenter-memphis https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-musk... 1: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/09/texas-hood-county-crypto-noise-incorporate-city/ https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/09/texas-hood-county-cr...
  - bluGill 7mo ago
    Community has nothing to do with it. They are asking about energy mix because that is important to enough of their customers that it is worth looking at.
lambdaone 7mo ago
Yes. The obsession with demonizing AI/data centre loads seems to be a deliberate distraction from the much, much larger carbon loads of the economy at large relative to which IT power consumption is a tiny proportion.
- DangitBobby 7mo ago
  I think it's much less cynical than that. People both fear and dislike AI, recognize that the "it may destroy my livelihood and commodify human creativity" complaint falls on deaf ears, and are latching onto anything resembling a credible ethical complaint that people may actually listen to.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
- alex_young 7mo ago
  Animal agriculture is around 15% of global emissions, and AI is probably .1% to .5%, but sure, stop using LLMs. That will solve the problem.
  - pjmlp 7mo ago
    Indeed lets tear down forests to build soya fields for all that fake meat tofu.
    - pingou 7mo ago
      You must have been misinformed, they tear down forests to grow soya to use as feedstock (mostly for beef). Nothing to do with fake meat tofu, quite the opposite actually.
      - pjmlp 7mo ago
        The point stands.
ceejayoz 7mo ago
> AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating, construction and shipping. When the oil in your frying pan is smoking, adding a tiny bit more heat may be unwise.
- hackeraccount 7mo ago
  Yeah that assumes that AI is an absolute negative. What if it impacts positively? I mean you gotta spend money to make money.
moogly 7mo ago
I would be fine if LLMs disappeared tomorrow, but if I couldn't heat my house, I'd freeze to death. But I guess some would argue that everyone needs to live in a city with district heating.
- unglaublich 7mo ago
  The heating of your house is worth the energy of many thousands of llm queries. So only turning down the thermostat by the smallest of steps would compensate your llm use. So, no you don't have to freeze to death to easily compensate your llm use.
epolanski 7mo ago
Which in turn are also relatively small compared to the damages of cattle and fishing. Seriously adapting our diets around being more sustainable. I'm not advocating for veganism or such, but at least to understand that eating a burger pollutes as much as driving a large vehicle for 50 miles and that maybe we can substitute that with poultry or eggs or cheese many times.
- pjmlp 7mo ago
  What about putting trees down for soya fields?
  - aziaziazi 7mo ago
    Speaking of deforestation: > Globally, 77% of soya is produced for animal feed, 19.2% for direct human consumption and 3.8% for industry (biodiesel, lubricants, etc.). https://www.deforestationimportee.ecologie.gouv.fr/en/affected-products/article/soy https://www.deforestationimportee.ecologie.gouv.fr/en/affect... Poultry protein efficiency is 21% and beef 3% > We find that reallocating the agricultural land used for beef feed to poultry feed production can meet the caloric and protein demands of ≈120 and ≈140 million additional people consuming the mean American diet, respectively, roughly 40% of current US population. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/105002 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/1... Edit: Note the soy usage vary around regions. The first link is from a French gov page, after the previous citation it gives the world repartition: > In animal feed, the largest consumer of soybeans is chicken (37% of world production), followed by pork (20.2%), aquaculture products (5.6%), dairy products (1.4%) and beef (0.5%). Which is quite different than the French reparation : > flesh and egg poultry account for 44% of total [imported] soy, then diary/mixed cows (36%) then flesh cow (8%) and pigs (6%) (fr) https://chaire-bea.vetagro-sup.fr/en-france-les-animaux-delevage-sont-nourris-avec-du-soja-issu-de-la-deforestation-vrai-ou-faux/ https://chaire-bea.vetagro-sup.fr/en-france-les-animaux-dele... Soy protein are 97.9% as digestible as beef > protein qualify can be scored in terms of its Protein Digestibility-Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS). Soy achieves a PDCAAS of 0.92, comparable to beef at 0.94. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets The DIAAS is sensibly worse (soy 0.898 - beef 1.116) but still far from the beef protein efficiency cited above (3%) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestible_Indispensable_Amino_Acid_Score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestible_Indispensable_Amino...
wolvesechoes 7mo ago
> AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating, construction and shipping. Let's stop building homes to live in and use motor vehicles for travel. Smartphone with LLM access will fulfill all our needs.

AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating, construction and shipping. It uses a bunch of energy, but not so much compared to moving yourself around in a car of plane.

pjmlp 7mo ago

A bunch of energy, water and Earth rare materials, nothing really to care about.

bluGill 7mo ago

It is also much more likely to use renewable energy. Data centers look at the local energy mix when planning where to put one. (though they are perhaps taking energy that would otherwise be shipped to a different city/state)

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
valiant55 7mo ago
This is definitely not always the case[0], let's not pretend these companies give a fuck about the communities in which their data centers operate[1]. 0: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-musk-xai-datacenter-memphis https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-musk... 1: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/09/texas-hood-county-crypto-noise-incorporate-city/ https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/09/texas-hood-county-cr...
- bluGill 7mo ago
  Community has nothing to do with it. They are asking about energy mix because that is important to enough of their customers that it is worth looking at.

lambdaone 7mo ago

Yes. The obsession with demonizing AI/data centre loads seems to be a deliberate distraction from the much, much larger carbon loads of the economy at large relative to which IT power consumption is a tiny proportion.

DangitBobby 7mo ago
I think it's much less cynical than that. People both fear and dislike AI, recognize that the "it may destroy my livelihood and commodify human creativity" complaint falls on deaf ears, and are latching onto anything resembling a credible ethical complaint that people may actually listen to.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
alex_young 7mo ago
Animal agriculture is around 15% of global emissions, and AI is probably .1% to .5%, but sure, stop using LLMs. That will solve the problem.
- pjmlp 7mo ago
  Indeed lets tear down forests to build soya fields for all that fake meat tofu.
  - pingou 7mo ago
    You must have been misinformed, they tear down forests to grow soya to use as feedstock (mostly for beef). Nothing to do with fake meat tofu, quite the opposite actually.
    - pjmlp 7mo ago
      The point stands.

ceejayoz 7mo ago

> AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating, construction and shipping. When the oil in your frying pan is smoking, adding a tiny bit more heat may be unwise.

hackeraccount 7mo ago
Yeah that assumes that AI is an absolute negative. What if it impacts positively? I mean you gotta spend money to make money.

moogly 7mo ago

I would be fine if LLMs disappeared tomorrow, but if I couldn't heat my house, I'd freeze to death. But I guess some would argue that everyone needs to live in a city with district heating.

unglaublich 7mo ago
The heating of your house is worth the energy of many thousands of llm queries. So only turning down the thermostat by the smallest of steps would compensate your llm use. So, no you don't have to freeze to death to easily compensate your llm use.

epolanski 7mo ago

Which in turn are also relatively small compared to the damages of cattle and fishing. Seriously adapting our diets around being more sustainable. I'm not advocating for veganism or such, but at least to understand that eating a burger pollutes as much as driving a large vehicle for 50 miles and that maybe we can substitute that with poultry or eggs or cheese many times.

pjmlp 7mo ago
What about putting trees down for soya fields?
- aziaziazi 7mo ago
  Speaking of deforestation: > Globally, 77% of soya is produced for animal feed, 19.2% for direct human consumption and 3.8% for industry (biodiesel, lubricants, etc.). https://www.deforestationimportee.ecologie.gouv.fr/en/affected-products/article/soy https://www.deforestationimportee.ecologie.gouv.fr/en/affect... Poultry protein efficiency is 21% and beef 3% > We find that reallocating the agricultural land used for beef feed to poultry feed production can meet the caloric and protein demands of ≈120 and ≈140 million additional people consuming the mean American diet, respectively, roughly 40% of current US population. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/105002 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/1... Edit: Note the soy usage vary around regions. The first link is from a French gov page, after the previous citation it gives the world repartition: > In animal feed, the largest consumer of soybeans is chicken (37% of world production), followed by pork (20.2%), aquaculture products (5.6%), dairy products (1.4%) and beef (0.5%). Which is quite different than the French reparation : > flesh and egg poultry account for 44% of total [imported] soy, then diary/mixed cows (36%) then flesh cow (8%) and pigs (6%) (fr) https://chaire-bea.vetagro-sup.fr/en-france-les-animaux-delevage-sont-nourris-avec-du-soja-issu-de-la-deforestation-vrai-ou-faux/ https://chaire-bea.vetagro-sup.fr/en-france-les-animaux-dele... Soy protein are 97.9% as digestible as beef > protein qualify can be scored in terms of its Protein Digestibility-Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS). Soy achieves a PDCAAS of 0.92, comparable to beef at 0.94. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets The DIAAS is sensibly worse (soy 0.898 - beef 1.116) but still far from the beef protein efficiency cited above (3%) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestible_Indispensable_Amino_Acid_Score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestible_Indispensable_Amino...

wolvesechoes 7mo ago

> AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating, construction and shipping. Let's stop building homes to live in and use motor vehicles for travel. Smartphone with LLM access will fulfill all our needs.