Disallow or discourage use of "AI" tools (Christoph Cullmann)

[Justin Zobel]

On 16/05/2025 19:42, Konstantin Kharlamov wrote:
> On Fri, 2025-05-16 at 09:52 +0930, Justin Zobel wrote:
>>   On 16/05/2025 00:48, Konstantin Kharlamov wrote:
>>> On Fri, 2025-05-16 at 00:29 +0930, Justin Zobel wrote:
>>>>   Ethical issues aside, AI has other impacts as well, most notably
>>>> environmental via the huge amounts of energy required to first
>>>> train
>>>> AI and then even using it.
>>>>   
>>> Maybe it's just me, but I never understood the reasoning behind "AI
>>> consumes too much power". I mean, I am all for ecology, but this
>>> implies improving technologies, not the opposite. Maybe I'm missing
>>> the
>>> point, but such reason to me seems equal to "stop using phones and
>>> computers, because they consume energy".
>>>   
>> Using a mobile phone cannot be compared to the power used by data
>> centres to train AI in the slightest.
>>   
>> Just straight off the top of my head, your phone and computer
>> automatically go to sleep by default. Servers do not.
>>   
>> It's also a matter of how these data centres are powered.
>> Corporations will often go for the cheapest source which is often
>> dirty non-renewable sources of energy.
> Thank you for clarification, I see. I think best course of action here
> would be creating some penalties for companies using too much energy,
> which may lead to companies investing into research for more efficient
> energy production. (this is very simplistic way to describe it, because
> going that way would require thinking of a lot of nuances, like company
> size, energy amount, etc, etc).
>
> Penalizing plain people I don't think would move anything forward,
> because a lone person wouldn't have the equipment to experiment with
> energy sources, it has to be someone working fulltime for a university
> or a company.
"I think best course of action here would be creating some penalties for 
companies using too much energy" <- Capitalism doesn't work that way.
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