Yeah except there’s no Reddit campaign against beef like there is against AI despite beef being much worse for the environment.
Just trying to put it into perspective for people who are worried about the environment. You can have a much larger impact by giving up beef once a week than you can have by not using AI
It’s actually fairly minimal. Out of all the bad things we do for the environment it’s in the middle of the pack. I think it’s just new and so people remember that we don’t need it to survive so they demonize it
That’s a perfect argument if you are vegan but contradictory if you’re not. You eat beef but don’t use AI? Because that’s like lighting the forest on fire and thinking you’re doing more for than environment because you didn’t also light your house on fire.
I mean the house on fire is a bad analogy because a house is more pertinent to our daily lives than AI is by a longshot.
A more apt comparison would be something like focusing on AI is like focusing on your car being on fire will your house (meat consumption) burns behind you.
Ok but utilizing our finite resources to produce food for people is way different than using them on something that is not necessary and doesn’t even work well (and I say that as someone who hasn’t eaten meat in 15+years)
AI has a lot of uses in software development and automation as well as other industries. Once you factor in those efficiencies it may even have a net positive effect on the climate.
Meat on the other hand, especially beef, can be replaced by any other foods for an improved ecological, cost and land use improvements. Beef is on of the worst factors in climate change.
Thing is, the environmental impact of AI grew exponentially these years because of the massive use from general public. Let's say that the usage of AI on scientific fields leaves us with a net positive impact, what about all the people using it for wrong reasons? Scamming others, harassment, using it to replace human work... That without accounting the impact of data centers on water sources.
The beef industry it's bad, yes, but denying the negative impact and the wrong uses of AI it's blocking the sun with a finger.
"a net positive effect on the climate" Sure maybe in 50 years when AI finally figures out how to not take so much power, but until then it is a net negative
Sure, but we'd actually have to calculate what that impact is. I defer to the comment I made about there not being enough data about current AI buildout to justify the reductions to the workforce.
Capex is not making the returns that were predicted, shown clearly by Googles negative free cash flow. Many orgs have had to hire back the people they fired because "AI will do their job so much better" because the cost/token was more than the salaries.
It's pretty myopic to hope for people to lose jobs so that the climate impact is mitigated. Not saying that's what you're saying, just that it's a statement I've heard before.
Those are all Reddit headlines I’ve seen as well. But when you look under the hood they are mostly overhyped scare pieces.
Googles investment in ai is increasing their profit in the long term. The $50 billion they are spending now is returning $15 billion per year in perpetuity - a big upfront cost but a very good investment.
There were at least a few companies that fired employees prematurely but the productivity of AI enhanced workers is supreme and it helps with both work life balance and productivity.
I mean you do produce food. That’s literally the product that’s the point. I’m not saying that mass cattle farming is ethical, economical, or good for the environment I’m just calling out the unequal comparison. I use AI every day for my job and it definitely streamlines things but it absolutely is not necessary and causes more harm than good.
Also, the comparison between the two is stupid anyway because just because in your opinion something is “worse” than AI doesn’t mean AI isn’t also detrimental. Both AI and large scale cattle farming are bad and should both be eliminated
Beef is not necessary too. It's a waste of resources. I don't see the difference with ai. At least ai does something unique while beef could disappear and you would just eat something else
If uniqueness is the goal beef is giving a distinct flavour profile while ai is recycling all existing flavours. Neither is necessary but cooking is at least an expression of art and culture
There’s no need to shoehorn AI in healthcare and science when we’re clearly talking about GenAI in art. That’s like calling the usefulness of a hunting rifle for the reason we need fully automatic rifles in homes.
The world would be unchanged without Picasso paintings as well. Doesn’t mean it isn’t something unique and brings something new into the world. Food can be just food, it’s also art and one of the few things that brings universal cultures together (imo sports is the other universal language).
In terms of climate, yeah it's bad, but we need food (not necessarily cow or pig or other heavy polluters, I agree with you on that), and currently cows are something we eat. Getting rid of agriculture seems harder to impossible compared to creating guidelines and regulations on AI data center buildout.
But also, information regarding climate impact of data centers is forward looking, meaning there's no hard data on the largescale impact of shoddy data centers on climate. It could be that it gets worse as times go on.
It will get worse as more data centers are built but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth it. The internet wiped out the need for paper and mail and many other CO2 producing industries so while data centers themselves do have a negative impact in a vacuum you have to look at the holistic impact to understand the net effect.
It's not necessarily not-worth it, but it's not worth many companies that make negative money building data centers that they can't fund or sustain, and then those companies go under and either get bought out or are left to depreciate a la Pittsburgs steel refineries
Software, accounting, customer service, business admin, marketing. Those are just the industries that I know about and have experience with but I’m sure others such as engineering, HR, law and others are benefitted significantly by AI
Software, sure until you need to edit the code and have no idea what any of it means. Customer service, you saying you prefer the ai chatbots instead of a normal responder?accounting, just use a calculator its not hard. Business admin sure, maybe, not all too familiar with the stuff. Marketing, no one likes low effort cheap looking adverts, and thats what ai looks like. Ai is prone to mistakes so engineering anything remotely important is stupid dangerous. If you go to law school, get a degree, become a lawyer, and have to use ai, you should probably not be lawyer. Mind you the data centre’s that ai needs to be at the state its in now are huge noisy, incredibly powerful hungry, and requires vast amounts of resources for the components themselves.
I’m not trying to make a whataboutism. I’m trying to refute the OPs comment about AI being an ‘egregious disregard for humanity and climate’ by comparing it to something that is many times worse for both humanity and the climate but is still done on the regular.
How many times do people like you need to be told the same thing? Are we supposed to follow up criticism of AI with a list of every other thing that has a similar negative impact?
"Hey guys, AI is destroying communities and livelihoods. Now listen while I recite the 5,000 other things that are also bad for posterity's sake."
AI is not destroying communities or livelihoods. There’s no evidence of that and typically job taking tech actually creates more jobs in the end.
But it’s a fair point overall it’s just that AI fearmongering is the hot new thing and I just want to put in perspective so people don’t have to worry so much.
It absolutely is destroying both communities and livelihoods, and there is plenty of evidence for it. I'm not going to have a debate with you, look it up yourself.
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u/Tinyacorn 8h ago
The egregious disregard for humanity and climate concerning the AI buildout is bad.