[k8sagic]

I disagree.

Datacenters save a lot more energy than they make. Alone how much co2 is saved when i can do my banking online instead of having to drive to a bank is significant.

The same with a ton of ohter daily things i do.

Is video producing co2? yes. But you know what creates a lot more co2? Driving around for entertainment.

And the companies running those GPUs actually have an incentive to be co2 neutral while bitcoin miners don't: They 1. already said they are doing / going co2 neutral due to 2. marketing and they will achieve it becauseh 3. they have the money to do so.

When someone like Bill Gates or Suckerberg say 'lets build a nuclear power plant for AGI' than they will actually just do that.

[croes]

>Is video producing co2? yes. But you know what creates a lot more co2? Driving around for entertainment

What's more likely, watching a movie online, drive to watch a movie in a cinema?

You know what creates a lot less CO2? Staying at home reading a book vor playing a board game.

>Datacenters save a lot more energy than they make

I think you mean CO2. And I doubt that they actually save anything because datacenters are convenient so we use them more as alternatives with less convenience.

Like the movie example, we watch more and even bad movies if it's just a click on Netflix than we do if we have to drive somewhere to watch.

MS recently announced they fail der CO2 target but instead produce 40% more because of cloud services like AI

[k8sagic]

Have you checked how much co2 a normal car drive creates vs. watching a movie online?

We need to be realistic here. We know what modern entertainment looks like and its not realistic at all to just 'read books' and play board games.

[quassy]

Point 1, 2 and 3 all apply to miners as well and yet they never delivered on their promise.

[k8sagic]

The normal miners never said that. They just say this at conferences for simple greenwashing.

The normal miner doesn't go to those bitcoin conferences, they buy asics, put them in some warehouses around the world and make money.

[fattegourmet]

> how much co2 is saved when i can do my banking online instead of having to drive to a bank is significant.

And if the online bank wasn't sending a bunch of requests to a bunch of third party ad networks on every click, it would save even more.

[k8sagic]

Yes. But what are you implying? Entertainment + ad garbage still is a lot more co2 efficient than printing flyers and sending those out.

[happyraul]

This is a very limited perspective. There are many parts of the world not beholden to automobiles for transportation. Where I live, I can walk to the bank, and walk or ride a bike to entertainment. The alternative to data centers does not have to be driving an automobile somewhere.

[k8sagic]

Your bank building has to be maintained and heated. Heating which is added to your use of the local bank.

My perspective is not limited. Just because people live in a city center, doesn't mean that most people do. Open Google Maps and take a look.

[austinjp]

I think it's more nuanced than that. I used to walk to my bank, I can't do that any more because many branches closed. The bank now directs all interactions to happen via their app. In terms of emissions (and social interaction, particularly for vulnerable and isolated members of society) I think this is bad news.

But this is a complex calculus and - frankly - feels like a distraction from the issue. I don't want to get into the weeds of calculating micro-emissions of daily activities, I want climate responsibility and reduction in energy consumption across the board.

[k8sagic]

I did made the point that AI/ml is helping us and the type of energy location and load is much easier to get green than lets say concrete.

We need AI/ML for getting there faster and helping more people around us. Alone for weather simulations but also for medicine, material research for batteries etc.

[yard2010]

Don't even get me started with the rant about taking planes.