Tim Bray
RE: https://cosocial.ca/@evan/115580076628853324
This was posted 4 months ago, i.e. forever in LLM time. I would really like to see a fully-worked through analysis of the actual GHG cost of #GenAI in general and for coding applications specifically. Including, obviously, training, data centre infrastructure, silicon fabrication, etc.
The reason: I have trouble reconciling these numbers with the insane volumes of investment capital going into the space.
Evan Prodromou
@timbray computer usage just isn't as carbon intensive a process as driving a car. Even with hundreds of billions being spent on new data centres, it's not a big part of the global emissions profile.
Evan Prodromou
@timbray my previous job was building greenhouse gas inventories.
Data centres are responsible for about 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. AI is responsible for about 15% of the data centre emissions, or about 0.15% of global emissions.
People who talk about AI burning up the planet don't spend a lot of time thinking about what's really burning up the planet: fossil fuels for transportation and heating, deforestation, and cattle.
Evan Prodromou
@ben@social.benjaminturner.me @timbray
"By comparison, data centres consumed 415 TWh in 2024, roughly 1.5% of the world’s total electricity consumption (see ‘Global electricity growth’)."
Electricity accounts for about 1/3 of global GHGs, so data centres are <1% of global GHGs.
"They found that servers for AI accounted for 24% of server electricity demand and 15% of total data centre energy demand in 2024."
blturner
Evan Prodromou
@timbray I think it's a good thing to try to reduce the emissions from data centres and AI. We need to do that with every single human activity that exists.
But I don't think it's fair to say that using AI is a singularly irresponsible activity and morally indefensible on ecological grounds.
Evan Prodromou
@dr2chase @timbray we don't have very good public education about GHG emissions, especially from different sectors. The press make a lot of apples-to-oranges comparisons that are hard for people to grasp in isolation, like saying that the fashion industry is responsible for more emissions that the EU.
dr2chase
@evan @timbray I’ve started to suspect that every eco-moral-panic around something that isn’t cars/trucks or beef is quietly promoted by big fossil or big ag as a deflection. Remember plastic straws?
Evan Prodromou
@dr2chase @timbray is that a lot? A little? Does that count clothing made in the EU?
Evan Prodromou
@dr2chase @timbray when we slice the pie geographically, but also by activity, and also by economic sector, it can get confusing.
For example, livestock account for about 10-15% of GHG emissions. Part of that is because they fart and burp and shit everywhere, creating a lot of methane, one of the worst greenhouse gases. But another part is because we destroy a lot of forests to make pastureland, taking out an important sink for CO2. Yet another part is processing and transportation.
Evan Prodromou
@dr2chase @timbray when you break that down by activity type, you'd put the different contributions in different buckets: livestock cultivation, deforestation, industrial processes, transportation. It's only when you look at the full economic sector that you get the combined numbers.
Evan Prodromou
@dr2chase @timbray if you look at the US GHG inventory, it's broken down by activity. So it's hard to see what contribution comes from furniture, from movies, from the wine industry. Their contributions are split across different activities.
Evan Prodromou
Nick Doty
@evan @timbray right, we need to reduce emissions in every sector of society. In tech, where we work, AI has led most companies to abandon their promises and increase emissions where they had been on track to reducing them. It's not as significant as transportation or heating or food, but for our industry, it's a huge backwards step, so it makes sense that we would be upset about it.
Evan Prodromou
Erin Dalzell (He/Him) 🇨🇦
@evan @dr2chase @timbray The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/04/ai-data-centers-energy-demands/686064/
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