The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

Absolutely needed: to get high efficiency for this beast … as it gets better, we’ll become too dependent.

“all of this growth is for a new technology that’s still finding its footing, and in many applications—education, medical advice, legal analysis—might be the wrong tool for the job,”

  • AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.spaceEnglish
    11·
    1 day ago

    I found this article from last year: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61364

    Our preliminary estimates suggest that annual electricity use from cryptocurrency mining probably represents from 0.6% to 2.3% of U.S. electricity consumption.

    The wide range should not be too surprising, it’s a mess to keep track of, especially with the current administration. Since then, with Trump immediately pledging to support the “industry”, I can only imagine it consuming even more now.

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      102·
      1 day ago

      That’s a huge amount of electricity even at it’s lowest. Are they building the AI to crypto mine is also another question. I could see these sneaky bastards combining the two somehow.

        • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          18 hours ago

          I was thinking how it probably helps by getting into nanoseconds with buying and selling stocks. I have found that there are very few coincidences with huge technologies, tons of cash pouring in and dark money. I could be wrong though.

      • Loduz_247@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 day ago

        As for OpenAI and Microsoft, they’re betting on energy with a company called Helion Energy. They say they’ll have it ready by 2028. Whether they’ll achieve that? We’ll see.