You can avoid the environmental impacts by using locally-hosted AI models.
Does thst reply not realize that is just spreading the impact around and not really reducing it? If anything it makes it worse because your local NPU/GPU lacks the efficiency of scale that say, a ChatGPT data center would have.
I think it’s worth considering that running locally places a limit on how resource intensive it can be (it can’t magically draw more power than your PSU can supply, and your components are only so capable) which means people will adjust their usage to fit within those limits.
It’s like how making people drive longer distances is actually good for the environment, because it ends up with people only driving when they REALLY have to.
There is an argument to be made for peoppe getting impatient and using it less. But if it takes X Watts (or whatever) to run a prompt, and its bottle necked by your PSU, its just going to run longer to get there, burning more excess heat etc. Vs a controlled data center space designed to run these sort of quieries. Its not like they have millions of literal consumer desktops in an office space running these systems.
I do not disagree with your observation.
But convincing them to cease locally operated AI is going to be harder. The anarchist flotilla is powered by this.
Does thst reply not realize that is just spreading the impact around and not really reducing it? If anything it makes it worse because your local NPU/GPU lacks the efficiency of scale that say, a ChatGPT data center would have.
I think it’s worth considering that running locally places a limit on how resource intensive it can be (it can’t magically draw more power than your PSU can supply, and your components are only so capable) which means people will adjust their usage to fit within those limits.
It’s like how making people drive longer distances is actually good for the environment, because it ends up with people only driving when they REALLY have to.
There is an argument to be made for peoppe getting impatient and using it less. But if it takes X Watts (or whatever) to run a prompt, and its bottle necked by your PSU, its just going to run longer to get there, burning more excess heat etc. Vs a controlled data center space designed to run these sort of quieries. Its not like they have millions of literal consumer desktops in an office space running these systems.
I do not disagree with your observation.
But convincing them to cease locally operated AI is going to be harder. The anarchist flotilla is powered by this.