[brynnbee]

Considering that current energy usage of AI is very likely to plummet in the coming years due to efficiency gains (which we've seem massive improvements on in the last couple years) and most of these large companies building datacenters are looking for and investing in specifically clean energy sources (nuclear) I don't think AI is a meaningful contributor compared to all the other high causes of global emissions.

[judahmeek]

Jevon's Paradox would like a word

[brynnbee]

Sure, but I meant consumption on a per-task basis. I would also add that at some point building new software is going to become rather valueless as society trends towards building effectively any variant of software anyone could want relatively instantly and cheaply.

There is also a finite number of consumers of AI content on the planet - sure maybe everyone want 4k-per eye live feed video of anything they want 24/7, but once you accomplish that for all 8 billion humans, there is no further demand for it.

Generation costs are very likely to continue to trends rapidly downward and there is a likely final wall of saturation of demand.