I tried to post this to Reddit but for some reason it keeps getting removed by filters. I normally just lurk on Lemmy but I decided to make an account because I’m so over that stupid platform.
ANYWAY
Last night on my flight home I noticed that the person in front of me was using ChatGPT. I got nosy so I looked closer and found out that they were actually using ChatGPT to write the content for a program of a sustainability and climate conference. They specifically included a section about “dirty” energy sources and the harm that results from energy producers supplying data centers. I was floored.
I am not sure if this was the final product or just a draft, but I find it pretty gross and ironic that the AI that is fueling the climate crisis and responsible for the rapid development of data centers that are doing irreparable damage to local communities and ecosystems is being employed to create the materials for a sustainability conference. Maybe start with looking in the mirror first?
I looked up the company, and turns out this program might be part of a Keynote Livestream that is featuring the Mayor of San Fransisco lol.
Its a good reminder that capitalism and its infinite urgency and extraction ideology is fueling the climate crisis and AI is just the latest and worst iteration of it.
Needing to fly because our lives are so squshed by that same capitallism that makes taking a bus or train impractical is yet another symptom
Soon LLM tools will become a luxury for the more affluent like flying as prices adjust up to correct for the absurd costs
God forbid we build more high speed rail.
I’ve talked about this a lot, but it pisses me off so much that so many small towns where I live in Georgia (and maybe most states in the US) have little decommissioned train stops. But the train lines are still used. My parents live in a town with one. I live in a town with one. They’re both within walking distance. In a better world I’d be able to catch a train to go see them without driving.
Yup.
Everything is so urgent and we’re so wired, is it really so hard to believe someone reaches for a tool to lessen a cognitive load when they have 12 other things to juggle?
That is how AI has bern marketed. And reaching for that tool is only human.
Unfortunately, it is killing the planet. All because of the soup du jour of capitalism and tribalism under anthropocentrism.