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Generative AI is reportedly tripling carbon dioxide emissions from data centers (www.techradar.com)
submitted 7 months ago by JRepin@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20289663

A report from Morgan Stanley suggests the datacenter industry is on track to emit 2.5 billion tons by 2030, which is three times higher than the predictions if generative AI had not come into play.

The extra demand from GenAI will reportedly lead to a rise in emissions from 200 million tons this year to 600 million tons by 2030, thanks largely to the construction of more data centers to keep up with the demand for cloud services.

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[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 99 points 7 months ago

Between AI and shitcoin mining, these two "technology branches" already consume more power than all the green power added to the grid combined.

It's why humans will always remain de facto slaves to a few masters. Anything that could potentially be advantageous to all life on Earth? Only if the ones at the top get to profit first. No profit? Enjoy scorching to death on hell-planet for the next forty years!

[-] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 42 points 7 months ago

Between AI and shitcoin mining, these two “technology branches” already consume more power than all the green power added to the grid combined.

And your sources? I only did a cursory search, and according to the IEA data centers are responsible for somewhere in the range of 2-6% of electricity demand. Renewables are currently around 30% globally.

Source: https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2024

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 24 points 7 months ago

I feel like some people are just emotional reactionaries. They see a certain story, and in their own mind they make the story worse than it is, and treat their feelings as fact.

I have no sources on this, or proof that this guy in particular is doing that.

.........wait, am I doing it right now???

Hmmmmm......

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

I dont think much will remain after this extinction event. Do you know how long it takes niches to refill in an ecosystem? We're going to get to a point where industry collapses and we are reset if we survive at all.

[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago

We wouldn't even be able to restart. All the easily available resources have been delved. Three thousand years ago people could scoop pure gold from rivers by the kilos. Today, all decent deposits lie kilometers below the surface.

But it'll be for the best. We had our shot and blew it.

[-] Tenniswaffles 11 points 7 months ago

Resources like gold would be more accessible, y'know because it already been mined and made into things. If society collapses what few survivors there are could recycle shit like metals. The actual issue is fossil fuels. Getting to a point where you can use renewable power would be difficult with using fossil fuels for power first.

[-] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Pretty sure immortan joe is going to be wearing all that gold.

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Maybe resources will be scarce enough that we are forced to try something other than capitalism, as we have to share to make it anywhere. Or maybe it will just make all resources needed for advanced technologies unavaible. Then we can fight over whose hut is closest to the last river.

[-] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

AI consumes power, yes, it's projected to triple its environmental impact, yes, but its environmental impact is much less than most other things. If anything, the AI hate train draws angry peoples' focus off the big polluters that matter.

"Arrghle AI is in everything and modern cars track you, I'll just drive a 30+ year old pickup truck because they don't has no AI tracking nonsense"

Oil and gas companies: money

[-] ampersandcastles@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 months ago

AI and crypto would be fine if we didn't have to put up with capitalism.

[-] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Between AI and shitcoin mining

The difference is that the better shitcoins have been upgraded to be 99% more energy efficient.

But there's no foreseeable limit or escape from the waste of "AI".

[-] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 8 points 7 months ago

Proof of Stake (PoS) is just dollar bonds without regulations. There's no "difficulty adjustment" to minimize profits, so inequality will just get worse and worse.

[-] Ragdoll_X@lemmy.world 33 points 7 months ago

I remember when scientists were more focused on making AI models smaller and more efficient, and research on generative models was focused on making GANs as robust as possible with very little compute and data.

Now that big companies and rich investors saw the potential for profit in AI the paradigm has shifted to "throw more compute at the wall until something sticks", so it's not surprising it's affecting carbon emissions.

Besides that it's also annoying that most of the time they keep their AIs behind closed doors, and even in the few cases where the weights are released publicly these models are so big that they aren't usable for the vast majority of people, as sometimes even Kaggle can't handle them.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Everyone thought AI was going to kill us via some Terminator-like Skynet.

Nope.

It’s just going to let us kill ourselves via greed and accelerate destroying the environment.

[-] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 6 points 7 months ago

But it's ok because it's also going to solve climate change.

[-] Rakudjo@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

And even if it doesn't, it'll still make hundreds of trillions of dollars doing it, so it was worth it in the end.

[-] exso@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Don't worry, it's all very green!

The cash and stock tickers that is.

[-] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 1 points 7 months ago

The solution it will eventually come up with - kill all humans

[-] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Its the 'first to market wins' paradigm

[-] credo@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago

Which search engines give results without an AI generated response?

[-] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 17 points 7 months ago

Startpage and DuckDuckGo, but you might want to disable summaries in the latter's settings.

[-] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago

Look, i'm not saying that this isn't a problem. My only question is, is this one of those "global warming is because people don't recycle their soda bottles" things? In other words, How concerned should I be about this vs, taking attention away from the energy, beef, and transportation industry?

[-] RustyShackleford@literature.cafe 31 points 7 months ago

Very concerned. It’s currently a race who can speed run us to extinction first.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago

I don't think this is something to focus on. Tech being 40% of all emissions in the US is suspicious, given that in 2021, all industry was 30.1%, and all transportation was 28.5%. And the total emissions in the US was 6.3 billion tons. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=108623

I don't have more recent data (if it's in the article, I didn't see it at a skim) but I feel like oil, gas, and agriculture are the bigger long-term targets.

[-] ElderReflections@fedia.io 11 points 7 months ago

Looks like Techradar misunderstood parts of the source story. The projected emissions over the next 10 years is equal to 40% of all US emissions. The Register

[-] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It's a percent against the world's emissions. Be concerned less with this. AI is the current hate train whipping boy, and takes the pressure of public focus off the biggest polluters.

[-] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

Every IT company now: we should increase our server costs by 100x to offer unwanted gimmicks that users don't want and aren't willing to pay

[-] towerful@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago

And don't trust

[-] mrvictory1@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

Call me surprised.

[-] Teknikal@eviltoast.org 8 points 7 months ago

It's a nice gimmick and sometimes fun but probably not worth it given the state of the planet already.

[-] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

This is exactly what using AI feels like:

https://youtu.be/lM0teS7PFMo?

[-] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee 5 points 7 months ago

If I run some AI model on my GPU and power my computer via solar power and some batteries, am I actually contributing significantly to GHG emissions?

Like what is the embodied energy of an AI model?

As usual, pundits and scientists confuse what is and what could be with the truth. For example plastic recycling isn't possible because "right now economics don't make it profitable". Meaning capitalism is killing us, not plastics. I suspect the same is true for AI.

[-] Rin@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

The model has to be trained, refined, etc. You running it off grid isn't the entire process, but I agree with you in a different sense.

If not AI, then there would be some other kind of compute taking up server capacity. It's on the data centers to solve this one, not AI.

[-] 0laura@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 months ago

yea but the models are already trained and noone pays to use the open source ones, so you're not really contributing to the training greenhouse gas emissions if you use an open source gen ai model locally.

[-] Rin@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

Training a model isn't free. It takes money and compute. That's also the greenhouse emissions. Even if you don't pay for any model and run it locally using solar, you've still got to consider what came before.

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Lesson: only ask AI if you're still stuck after searching and have no colleague around.

[-] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

This is the "carbon footprint" fallacy created by big oil. We should vote left and unionize until either the external cost of pollution is internalized with pigouvian taxes, or electricity is rationed by a community-owned organization.

Nobody will notice us shooting ourselves in the foot and expecting corporations to do it too. They don't care if we lead by example unilaterally.

[-] drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Oh yea, this is happening too.

[-] ano_ba_to@sopuli.xyz 2 points 7 months ago

There exists an alternative that uses a lot less power. And also that power is going to get spent no matter what anyway.

[-] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

From construction of three data centers or everyday use. Weird wording this whole article.

[-] gencha@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Where are their numbers coming from? The central registry of carbon emissions for genAI data centers? They know shit. They're probably shorting Nvidia and are crying over their losses. Fuck Morgan Stanley

this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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