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The title is misleading. It's not a "ban", just a "moratorium" until November 2027 And your "easy solution" has had a lot of research debunking its efficacy an

• ainch 7mo ago
  Carbon offsets are a sham, but you could just require them to directly pay for the actual energy infrastructure required. If you need 1GW of electricity, develop 1GW of solar.
  • irishcoffee 7mo ago
    Surely you realize that building the infrastructure and driver of the 1GW provider would be, hopefully, carbon neutral?
    • ainch 7mo ago
      Sorry, I'm not picking up on the connection - could you expand? Do you think they should also pay for offsets alongside developing energy infrastructure?
      • irishcoffee 7mo ago
        I guess what I'm asking is how long it takes, soup-to-nuts, for the 1GW installation to be carbon neutral or better? I've read anywhere from 7 months to 25 years. Maybe its dependent on location?
        • ainch 7mo ago
          Oh sure, I see what you mean - thanks for clarifying. On top of your point, it's true that CO2 has a prolonged impact on global temperature even after it's been 'removed' from the atmosphere, so even once solar pays back the original carbon investment its impact lingers for a while. I guess at a certain point you're getting at a more fundamental question about the value of AI (plus technology and everything else) - what level of environmental tradeoff is acceptable? One thing I slightly lament about the discourse is that tradeoff is widely discussed in the case of AI, but not in the context of stuff we do. I suspect most people aren't aware that the water use associated with eating a burger dwarves a year of ChatGPT, that a long-haul flight wipes out the emissions savings of a couple years' veganism, or that renewables have their own impacts, like the demolition of Chile for copper.