Global warming appears to have shifted into a faster gear. After removing the effects of El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles, researchers found that the planet has warmed at roughly 0.35°C per decade over the past ten years, compared with just under 0.2°C per decade from 1970 to 2015. The acceleration, which becomes visible around 2013 to 2015, appeared across five major global temperature datasets with more than 98% statistical certainty.
If you spend an evening in talking with an AI instead of streaming a movie from Netflix in 4k you’d have used less energy. Which would be still less than just the gas used to drive a few miles away for a night out.
And all data center usage is significantly less than something like A/C usage (which is likely to be increasing as temps increase).
There’s a lot of legitimate grievances and concerns about AI — just today I was seeing a mathematician having an identity crisis in response to the unrelenting solving of open questions, something probably every field will soon struggle with adapting to — but the inflated perception of the environmental impacts means that so much less public attention is being spent on the actual culprits and possible solutions thereof.
There should be solar panels on all the roofs to help offset aircon use etc.
I have solar panels on my roof, why don’t you?
For me its mostly the cost to benefit ratio given my current electricity prices. At current prices I’m not even sure I’d break even financially for my maintenaince costs of solar (like battery replacement) versus just paying my utility bill. As energy prices change that might change but currently it doesn’t make sense for me, i still have a mortgage to pay and other major repairs to do to my house and ideally id have to prematurely redo the roof before installing solar.