this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
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As I expected, the author made no attempt to calculate the carbon footprint of the human artists and other workers that these AIs can replace, or the carbon savings from productivity gains or other similar efficiencies. If a call center gets closed because the workers were replaced by AI that's a ton of commuting and such that's no longer needed.
Those people aren't deleted from existence, they still produce just as much carbon they just don't have jobs.
Productivity gains are meaningless when it just means that bosses will demand more work in less time
They may do something that doesn't involve as much commuting. They'll be doing something that wasn't being done before. Productivity gains means more work gets done, overall.
The point is that the author's analysis is simple-minded to the point of uselessness. If I were to object to building a hospital in a neighborhood because whenever a hospital is added to a neighborhood it results in a sharp increase in the number of people dying there, you'd rightly call me out for looking at just one specific number while ignoring the overall benefits. It's not like these AIs just pop into existence and spew CO2 like some sort of Captain Planet villain's pollution factory, the AIs are doing something and that has value.
About what I expect out of mainstream media.
This is why I've been researching and working on FOSS AI systems. My own AI cannot fire me. ;)