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[+] -27 points 1 year ago (5 children)

All the people here chastising LLMs for resource wastage, I swear to god if you aren't vegan...

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    What is it with vegans and comparing literally everything to veganism? I was in another thread and it was compared to genocide, rape, and climate change all in the same thread. Insanity

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    probably because the animal death industry is comparable to those things

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Death Industry sounds like it would be an awesome band name.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It's not, you're just personally insulted. The livestock industry is responsible for about 15% of human caused greenhouse gas emissions. That's not negligible.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    So, I can't complain about any part of the remaining 85% if I'm not vegan? That's so fucking stupid. Do you not complain about microplastics because you're guilty of using devices with plastic in them to type your message?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yes, I'm a piece of shit for using a phone made by a capitalist corporation and contributes to harming the planet. I don't deny that I live in a horrible society that forces me to be a bad human just to survive.

    I also don't call people stupid for telling me my device is bad for the environment. I still eat meat, I'm not a vegan, but I understand and completely agree that it's terrible for the environment. By recognizing it, I can be conscious of my consumption and reduce it.

    I also use LLMs conservatively, I use them where they add value and I don't use them frivolously to generate shitty AI slop.

    I'm conscious of its dangers and that drives my consumption of it.

    But I don't pick and choose. I don't eat animal products three meals a day and bitch about someone using an LLM to edit a file instead of manually working on it for five hours.

    Just be consistent is the message they were communicating, not that you shouldn't complain about 85%.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Same, I'm very aware that my selfish actions cause harm to the environment and I do try to be conservative about meat, electricity, and water usage. I don't even own a car.

    But "I swear to God, if you aren't vegan," which is what OP said, is hardly the same as "keep it consistent." It feels like they're telling us both that our efforts are pointless because we aren't vegan. They could have said, try cutting meat from your diet to help more, or give veganism a thought. It comes off as insufferably arrogant, you know?

    I'll end my rant now, haha. Sorry.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    They were trying to be funny, don't be too literal.

    I think (that's how I interrupted it, I don't know) the intent was to reflect the insufferably arrogant tone of most people who exclusively complain about AI as if it has no benefits and will be the sole destroyer of our society.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    Imagining complaining about someone tipping out fresh water, while eating a burger when a single kilo of beef uses between 15,000 to 200,000 liters.

    Like, until you stop doing the worst thing a single consumer can do to the planet for literally nothing but greed and pleasure (eating meat instead of healthier alternatives), you have no leg to criticize.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    You can, but you also open yourself up to criticism of your hypocrisy.

    Right now, your cognitive dissonance is flaring up because you have to simultaneously criticize someone for contributing to a problem while contributing to it yourself.

    I'm not even vegan, but I absolutely love watching meat-eaters squirm because it reinforces my notion that the average person is a complete idiot and should not be taken seriously.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I'm very much aware of my hypocrisy, but I do my best in other ways to help.

    If people like OP are going to be dismissive of my efforts, then I guess they're free to think that — just like I'm free to think that kind of hate keeping is stupid.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    you're just personally insulted.

    I swear to God this attitude is why people don't like what you're saying. I am all for weighing the two against each other but the "I am more moral than thou" is why I left the church.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Whataboutism isn’t useful. Nobody is living the perfect life. Every improvement we can make towards a more sustainable way of living is good. Everyone needs to start somewhere and even if they never move to make more changes at least they made the one.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    1 beef burger is equivalent in water consumption to 7.5million chatgpt queries.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    I did a quick calculation and got to around 500 queries per quarter pounder. Lot of guesstimation and rounding though, but I’m pretty sure I got close enough to know that you’re off by quite a lot.

    Edit to add: I used 21.9kg CO2 per 1kg of beef and 4.32 grams per ChatGPT query for my rough estimate.

    However that 4.32 number is already over a year old. Chances are it’s way outdated but everyone still keeps on quoting it. It definitely does not take into account that ChatGPT often “thinks” now, because chain of thought is likely as expensive as multiple queries by itself. Additionally the models are more advanced than a year ago, but also more costly and that CO2 amount everyone keeps quoting doesn’t even mention which model they used. If anyone can find the original source of this number I’d be very curious.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    The CO2 calculation is also useful and interesting, but they did say "water consumption"

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Fair.

    Water use comes out to about 150.000 chatGPT queries per quarter pounder. Using 10ml per prompt and 15.000l per kg of beef.

    Still off by many orders of magnitude.

    Also that’s just the running costs. If we go into training we’re looking at a comparison the other way around. Training GPT-3 cost 700.000 liters of water. So that’s 466.6 quarter pounders.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    I disagree.

    There's so much proud ignorance in this world, it's great to always remind the average person how they're contributing to problems they don't even realize.

    We should bring their hypocrisy to light, or else they will legitimately go through life thinking that there isn't a problem.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    So when people tell you about the positive changes they’ve made you in return like to point out that they still aren’t living up to your standards? I’m not sure that’s the way to go to motivate and inspire people to do better. But you do you I guess.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I mean, they're both bad.

    But also, "Throw that burger in the trash I'm not eating it" and "Uninstall that plugin, I'm not querying it" have about the same impact on your gross carbon emissions.

    These are supply side problems in industries that receive enormous state subsides. Hell, the single biggest improvement to our agriculture policy was when China stopped importing US pork products. So, uh... once again, thank you China for saving the planet.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Wait so the biggest improvement came when there was a massive decline in demand?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Animal agriculture has significantly better utility and scaling than LLMs. So, its not hypocritical to be opposed to the latter but not the former.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The holocaust was well scaled too. Animal ag is responsible for 15-20% of the entire planets GHG emissions. You can live a healthier, more morally consistent life if you give up meat.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Do you know what I mean by "scaling"? Because going by your reply, you don't.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Not really. It shows that he used scale in the appropriate manner.

    I think you're just grasping at straws by saying what sounds nice in your head instead of engaging in a legitimate argument.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I said "scaling" not "scale". "Scaling" refers to how output and expenses of the enterprise behaves as it becomes bigger or smaller. Threeduck seems to think it means "big". And then immediately refers the holocaust for some reason.

    Though, the term is broad, hence why I asked them about how they interpret the term.

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