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Prediction vs Reality
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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Microblog Memes
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We could really use a covid-style lockdown for a few years.
But this time no cure until we wipe out all the anti mask/ anti vaccine idiots first
And "AI" idiots who insist on burning entire areas just to generate shrimp Jesus memes
And the fascist oligarchs. Maybe lock em in submarines and drown the lot of em.
We don’t need a covid-style lockdown to do that. Just saying.
i know the perfect company for that one, im sure they still use a logitech controller.
Ai data centres used about 0.5% of global electricity production last year. Electricity production is about 26,000 TWh annually, versus total energy production of 185 TWh annually, so AI was about 0.07% of all energy consumption. Energy production causes the bulk of greenhouse emissions: 73.2%, putting AI on 0.05% (this is unfair to AI, because electricity is cleaner than the average energy production which includes just burning gas for heat).
In comparison, trying to find something small on https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector my favourite comparison is that energy for making paper consumes more than 10x as much as does AI.
A large TV might consume about 100W while on, so 100Wh to watch for an hour. To reach the same consumption with AI, you'd need to run about 55 expensive (the upper estimate I found was 6700J - I assume this means long coding answers, research or image generation) chatgpt queries.
Personally I think it unlikely that someone would reach that 1 prompt per minute at that expensive estimate, so ask yourself: is AI really "burning entire areas" compared to just watching TV?
It has its problems but this is a moral panic.
If you're downvoting, leave me a comment to say why.
It all well and good comparing data centre energy usage with global production. But you miss out the important reality that a good chunk of the data centres running today and in the near future are using fossil fuel power on-site, without a grid connection, which is so much worse.
And yet the data center lobby says the EU should abandon its climate goals for AI
They seem to be talking more about reliability than capacity. And you've not commented on the numbers, and comparison with other activities, which I'd take as more reliable and significant than the pronouncements of a damn lobbyist.
I mean you're talking to a guy who has halved his total energy usage over the past four years including watching fewer shows, playing fewer games, and sharing more books with friends from our already existing libraries. Trying to convince me that AI isn't that bad because it only adds a little more energy usage is a real lost cause when I'm constantly trying to push things to less energy usage in every way I can because I hear climate scientists sounding all the alarm bells.
It's an extra 0.5% that didn't need to exist on top of everything else we need to reduce.
Do you complain that everyone is being immoral for continuing to watch TV? Or do you accept that energy usage for entertainment is allowed?
How do you compare the relative moral value of using AI, watching TV, driving 10 miles, eating a steak and catching a flight?
If I wanted to halve my carbon footprint I'd further reduce my meat consumption. I would do nothing about gaming, safe in the knowledge that it's basically irrelevant.
Everyone should be doing what they can was more my point. I went for the biggest things for myself. I already was mostly vegetarian and didn't drive much so nothing to change there. Most of my carbon footprint was gaming, TV, and AC. Things I was able to work on easily. I do understand I'm fortunate enough to be able to add more insulation to my house and get more efficient appliances and so on. I do know we need to tackle things at the industrial level for best effect.
My point, again was that adding more power consumption and heat generation is definitely not the way.
Sure, but everyone needs to stay sane and alive - so whether someone is generating a slop meme, or watching TV - or using Claude to keep their boss happy, or whatever, these are relatively morally equivalent things. Yet here, AI is singled out as if it were uniquely damaging, when in fact it's similar. Just more hated.
That's your belief they're morally equivalent. Which is the core of the disagreement. Accepting the status quo is morally inferior is my belief.
What's the difference?
However there is sharp growth in demand being predicted and I don't see any sign of humanity trading in some other power usage to get their data center power allocation. Even if we're are greening the grid it is all for nothing if the extra capacity has to be filled in by more fossil fuels.
The anti-mask/no jab people were convinced to be dangerous by billionaire propaganda.
So? Matrix rules motherfucker, I don't care if you've been manipulated into trying to kill me, I just care that you're trying to kill me and it's not my responsibility to deprogram your death cult ass. Fuck em, every last one.
And also made to be susceptible to that level of stupidity by capitalists & their owned politicians gutting education / failing to fund it adequately to begin with. (For US anyway.)
Nationalise essential services and rotate people in and out of those jobs for three months at a time, like jury service
Naaah. Get your lazy asses back to the office... so its market value doesn't decrease.
Also, no wind turbines or any such humbug in our neighborhood... so we can keep increasing rents. Which we, the boomers, decided ourselves, through collective hypnosis. Also, what's with this freeloader mentality? Imagine if any of the hoi-polloi could simply use wind and sun. Like, for themselves.