Melkath

CO2 doesn’t only come from fossil fuels. It comes from combustion in general.

We can go nuclear, but look at how Russia has ruined its entire country trying to do that (if you are not aware of how severe the radiation problem in all of Russia, not just Chernobyl, has become, there are tons of youtubers that do documentary style content, Plainly Difficult is one of my favorites).

Solar, wind, hydro can do it, but the amount of CO2 produced by manufacturing the generators is still massive. Its just producing the CO2 upstream in the process instead of during the actual power generation. It would take so many solar panels and windmills to replace burning coal that producing them would still release an amount of greenhouse gasses that rivals just burning the coal.

I don’t disagree that we can make try moves to mitigate the damage, but giant red flags went out about Crypto mining. The power draw from AI is far surpassing that, and AI has hardly even started to spin up yet.

I hope for the day we figure out how to produce unlimited energy without destroying the atmosphere in the process, but its Newton’s Third Law. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Each “solution” comes with its drawbacks, but our thirst for electricity only ever grows.

The answer would be to make AI draw less power, not to create more power in different ways.

There is no way we are going to get CEOs to scale back their AI power draw when it gives them the ability to scan everyone’s face and spy on them in a comprehensive, existential way. They are already using it on Anti-Zionist protesters. They are never going to give that kind of power up, but that kind of power requires an insane amount of… power.

I’d say the masses dying of starvation and exposure would reduce global warming, but the millions of cars will be replaced by hundreds of private jets that net greater emissions.

The poor factory workers will be more destitute, and the rich will always find a way fill that void. Fuck, they will force their pilot to fly the empty jet around the world just to make sure that conditions on earth dont improve and they eventually get to utilize their vault 3 miles underground before they die.

It is already showing really great potential.

Then the news drops that all of the progress we made on global warming has been undone by the energy usage caused by AI.

So sure, AI will live up the hype, and we will still die a slow and agonizing death of heat and suffocation.

But at least we will have AI friend chat bots to comfort us through the end.

That’s been the tactic.

Baby steps.

My company ordered back to office, and as I was told, I was the only one to say no.

I generate too much value and have tolerated being underpayed enough that they can’t justify firing me.

I’m also not some MIT AI machine learning savant. I come from a business analyst/ QA background, and I have made a SQL/Java/VBA system for virtually free that does the work of a team of 10 every day, but it’s just my underpaid ass running it.

When I lose this job, honestly, I’m fucked and it will be a nightmare because I’ll probably need to go into an office, and I’m in no shape for that.

But for today, I said no and I keep doing my job.