Definitely true, and I have a lot more respect for these people than say, grandstanding internet users. Huge difference between politely saying "Data centers are bad and we should severely regulate them and consider a moratorium" and "anyone who queries chatgpt should KILL THEMSELVES!!!" (1.1k likes) while having eaten a fucking burger yesterdayTurns out climate activists have consistent ideologies, who knew
There is also no denying that the exponential growth from data centers is concerning and must be stemmed, one way or the other. I just think that treating data centers as the ONLY source of emissions risks overshadowing the need for emissions reductions in many other areas. Yes, I understand that this is not an either/or, and that an argument could be made for focusing on data centers to stem a rapidly-growing new source of pollution before it becomes entrenched in our society like the others. However, I don't think people online are this nuanced either.
Noteworthy admission on the author's part:
Let’s very conservatively assume only 15% of Google’s 2025 energy consumption was for AI. The company would have to receive 74.6 billion prompts a day, according to the 0.24 watt hour number above, to explain their energy hunger. ChatGPT, which is several times more popular than Google Gemini, claimed to receive 2.5bn prompts a day, in 2025.
If we assume 25% of their 2025 energy was generative AI, they’d need 124bn a day to explain the energy consumption. If 50%, they’d need 248bn (every single human being alive, including babies, sending 30 Gemini prompts per day).
Obviously, this is not happening. What is happening is that GenAI’s climate harm comes from the system design, such as Google’s AI overview triggering constantly whether users want it or not, in addition to significantly worse digital bloat tools dominating overconsumption.
