idk if that’s the intended takeaway from those numbers.
According to AllAboutAI analysis, global AI processing generates over 260,930 kilograms of CO₂ monthly from ChatGPT alone, equivalent to 260 transatlantic flights, with 1 billion daily queries consuming 300 MWh of electricity.
according to the faa there are on average 5500 planes in the air every day, and while i couldn’t find an exact number there seem to be between 350 and 1 200 transatlantic flights every day, depending on season.
260 tons is still massive, but let’s not kid ourselves. it’s about equivalent to producing 12 new american-size cars.
260,930 kilograms of CO₂ monthly from ChatGPT alone
ChatGPT has the most marketing, but it’s only part of the AI ecosystem… and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if other AI products are bigger now. Practically every time someone does a Google search, Gemini AI spits out a summary whether you wanted it or not — and Google processes more than 8 billion search queries per day. That’s a lot of slop.
There are also more bespoke tools that are being pushed aggressively in enterprise. Microsoft’s Copilot is used extensively in tech for code generation and code reviews. Ditto for Claude Code. And believe me, tech companies are pushing this shit hard. I write code for a living, and the company I work for is so bullish on AI that they’ve mandated that us devs have to use it every day if we want to stay employed. They’re even tracking our usage to make sure we comply… and I know I’m not alone in my experience.
All of that combined probably still doesn’t reach the same level of CO² emissions as global air travel, but there are a lot more fish in this proverbial pond than just OpenAI, and when you add them all up, the numbers get big. AI usage is also rising much, much faster than air travel, so it’s really only a matter of time before it does cross that threshold.
Seeing memes posted here that use AI while sitting on it is the most confusing thing to me.
Just… don’t use it, people. The hole burning in AI bros’ pockets will close up if you just stop making it profitable. Even the free ones are making money with ads. Don’t use it, even for a joke.
Frankly focusing on the carbon output of AI models is a red herring. It’s not a significant part of the problem and just makes people complacent in the form of feeling like we’ve achieved something if it succeeds. It’s not worse than stuff like video games
Focus on the actual negative effects of AI, but carbon intensity isn’t a major one
Yeah, because the widespread adoption of cars turned out to be such a great idea with no negative consequences… But even if you ignore the glaringly obvious negatives, AI still doesn’t come anywhere close to having the practical utility as the modern car. At least a car can carry out its advertised function without issues.
I’ve been using AI almost daily for several years now, as a function of my job. It’s garbage tech. Most of the things it’s supposed to be good for it downright sucks at, and the stuff it is good at has already been possible using simpler, more reliable systems for years — sometimes even decades. The situation isn’t really improving, either. Models are using more energy, consuming more data, and doing more computation than ever before… but the results are still embarrassingly underwhelming. Anyone who’s bothered to educate themselves on the math and method behind the models knows by now that the current generation of AI is dead-end technology, and anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant of the technical details, has a vested financial interest in AI, or both.
It also really fucking irritates me to be constantly called a Luddite by people who don’t even know how this technology fucking works… No, I don’t hate AI because I’m scared of technology, or “progress” or whatever the fuck. I’ve made a career working in technology. I love tech… or I used to, before everyone lost their god damn minds praying to Sam Altman and his horrifyingly expensive golden idol. No, I hate AI because it’s demonstrably bad technology.
I personally enjoy using it to the point I’m ready to pay for it. It helps me figuring out rather complex things where I wouldn’t even know what to type into a normal search engine to start tackling the problem. Imo, both forcing people to use it and forbidding people to use it, is making people unhappy. Just let people work the way they want to.
Yesterday I got just a regular ChatGPT explaining me how to convert some geometry into screen space using inverted transform matrix of the camera and dividing x,y by z in camera space to get the projection and then normalizing using min/max x,y, then after I got some bad results trying to get those numbers into the place where I need them, writing me a script that transforms my node-based Blender geonodes setup into JSON (just for the sake of giving this JSON to ChatGPT for analysis), then after reading this JSON explained to me some advanced control and data flow intricacies of geonodes and recommended a setup I could use to reshape control and data flow the way I need. This is all rather useful and would take more time and effort to gather all this information by myself. And it’s not like I’m not learning anything, it just makes learning faster.
Theoretically, sure there’s potential. But it shouldn’t be getting used as a commercial product in the meantime.
Especially generative. Letting it write, compose, create… All of that is 1,000% a mistake. The kind accessible to the public can’t currently create at scale without unethical access to source material.
It shouldn’t be getting shoehorned into every job possible while it’s still in this pre-alpha kind of state.
Although I don’t actually know the ratio of research use vs casual use, tbf. But this shit gotta be litigated and used properly with proper guidelines, not just thrown out like this.
It’s still way too early for this shit. Our willingness as a species to just jump into new tech should have been tempered to be smarter by now.
Maybe I would’ve been reluctant about those technologies. But I am convinced with data. And so far I’ve only seen problems with it, no actual benefits.
idk if that’s the intended takeaway from those numbers.
according to the faa there are on average 5500 planes in the air every day, and while i couldn’t find an exact number there seem to be between 350 and 1 200 transatlantic flights every day, depending on season.
260 tons is still massive, but let’s not kid ourselves. it’s about equivalent to producing 12 new american-size cars.
Just goes to show that you don’t even need AI to spread misinformation! Haha
ChatGPT has the most marketing, but it’s only part of the AI ecosystem… and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if other AI products are bigger now. Practically every time someone does a Google search, Gemini AI spits out a summary whether you wanted it or not — and Google processes more than 8 billion search queries per day. That’s a lot of slop.
There are also more bespoke tools that are being pushed aggressively in enterprise. Microsoft’s Copilot is used extensively in tech for code generation and code reviews. Ditto for Claude Code. And believe me, tech companies are pushing this shit hard. I write code for a living, and the company I work for is so bullish on AI that they’ve mandated that us devs have to use it every day if we want to stay employed. They’re even tracking our usage to make sure we comply… and I know I’m not alone in my experience.
All of that combined probably still doesn’t reach the same level of CO² emissions as global air travel, but there are a lot more fish in this proverbial pond than just OpenAI, and when you add them all up, the numbers get big. AI usage is also rising much, much faster than air travel, so it’s really only a matter of time before it does cross that threshold.
they list the others in the article.
Thank you.
Idk if LLMs can tell which number is bigger. But we already knew humans can’t.
Yes, but there’s zero fucking actual benefit.
Seeing memes posted here that use AI while sitting on it is the most confusing thing to me.
Just… don’t use it, people. The hole burning in AI bros’ pockets will close up if you just stop making it profitable. Even the free ones are making money with ads. Don’t use it, even for a joke.
Frankly focusing on the carbon output of AI models is a red herring. It’s not a significant part of the problem and just makes people complacent in the form of feeling like we’ve achieved something if it succeeds. It’s not worse than stuff like video games
Focus on the actual negative effects of AI, but carbon intensity isn’t a major one
People like you wouldn’t have seen the benefit in cars vs horse and carriages, computers vs typewriters and books, or watches vs sundials.
I bet you think that the only thing AI is used for is ChatGPT style conversations too.
Yeah, because the widespread adoption of cars turned out to be such a great idea with no negative consequences… But even if you ignore the glaringly obvious negatives, AI still doesn’t come anywhere close to having the practical utility as the modern car. At least a car can carry out its advertised function without issues.
I’ve been using AI almost daily for several years now, as a function of my job. It’s garbage tech. Most of the things it’s supposed to be good for it downright sucks at, and the stuff it is good at has already been possible using simpler, more reliable systems for years — sometimes even decades. The situation isn’t really improving, either. Models are using more energy, consuming more data, and doing more computation than ever before… but the results are still embarrassingly underwhelming. Anyone who’s bothered to educate themselves on the math and method behind the models knows by now that the current generation of AI is dead-end technology, and anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant of the technical details, has a vested financial interest in AI, or both.
It also really fucking irritates me to be constantly called a Luddite by people who don’t even know how this technology fucking works… No, I don’t hate AI because I’m scared of technology, or “progress” or whatever the fuck. I’ve made a career working in technology. I love tech… or I used to, before everyone lost their god damn minds praying to Sam Altman and his horrifyingly expensive golden idol. No, I hate AI because it’s demonstrably bad technology.
I personally enjoy using it to the point I’m ready to pay for it. It helps me figuring out rather complex things where I wouldn’t even know what to type into a normal search engine to start tackling the problem. Imo, both forcing people to use it and forbidding people to use it, is making people unhappy. Just let people work the way they want to.
Yesterday I got just a regular ChatGPT explaining me how to convert some geometry into screen space using inverted transform matrix of the camera and dividing x,y by z in camera space to get the projection and then normalizing using min/max x,y, then after I got some bad results trying to get those numbers into the place where I need them, writing me a script that transforms my node-based Blender geonodes setup into JSON (just for the sake of giving this JSON to ChatGPT for analysis), then after reading this JSON explained to me some advanced control and data flow intricacies of geonodes and recommended a setup I could use to reshape control and data flow the way I need. This is all rather useful and would take more time and effort to gather all this information by myself. And it’s not like I’m not learning anything, it just makes learning faster.
spoiler
Theoretically, sure there’s potential. But it shouldn’t be getting used as a commercial product in the meantime.
Especially generative. Letting it write, compose, create… All of that is 1,000% a mistake. The kind accessible to the public can’t currently create at scale without unethical access to source material.
It shouldn’t be getting shoehorned into every job possible while it’s still in this pre-alpha kind of state.
Although I don’t actually know the ratio of research use vs casual use, tbf. But this shit gotta be litigated and used properly with proper guidelines, not just thrown out like this.
It’s still way too early for this shit. Our willingness as a species to just jump into new tech should have been tempered to be smarter by now.
Maybe I would’ve been reluctant about those technologies. But I am convinced with data. And so far I’ve only seen problems with it, no actual benefits.