🤖🌍 GenAI’s Hidden Costs A new study highlights the environmental toll and social inequities of GenAI - from mining rare metals to energy-hungry data centres and underpaid labour. 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #SciComm #AI 🧪 - ThreadSky

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samillingworth.com • 56 days ago

🤖🌍 GenAI’s Hidden Costs

A new study highlights the environmental toll and social inequities of GenAI - from mining rare metals to energy-hungry data centres and underpaid labour.

🔗 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666498424001340

#SciComm #AI 🧪

Comments

aaronsher.bsky.social•56 days ago

The thing to look for in these articles is always “how much of what they’re complaining about is unique to AI?” The answer is normally none of it. AI doesn’t use different hardware than other software. It’s still quite a small part of the workload of those data centers.

aaronsher.bsky.social•56 days ago

This isn’t new, and it has nothing to do with AI. They’re just using AI as a buzzword to get clicks. This is about industrial growth, which is a concern.

unitled.bsky.social•56 days ago

You would agree though that we should aim to minimise use of the relevant materials and labour practices? I think a large part of the objection is over how pointless much of the Gen AI use is.

aaronsher.bsky.social•55 days ago

Sure, we should always be looking to optimize resource usage. And yes, much of the usage is pointless, but again that's not different from anything else - see, for example, social media, which I suspect occupies a much larger fraction of the world's data centers than AI for now.

aaronsher.bsky.social•55 days ago

GenAI is a foundational technology. It will enable incredible use cases in the future. The things we're doing with it now are kindergarten, but I guarantee that it will change the world in fundamental ways eventually. Engineers are working on the energy usage and it will get better.

scottjacobsen.bsky.social•56 days ago

Needs a megaphone, important style and content for serious commentary.

darcyprior.bsky.social•56 days ago

Really interesting study, Sam - thank you for flagging! 🙏

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