It means centrists can conveniently forget about the promises they made to shrill, naive environmental activists which was getting hard to do anyways because it meant they had to pretend they didn’t hate environmental activism and that their lukewarm embrace of it was because… reasons…
Now those people can shrug and with a big smile gesture at AI and say “I am really sorry but we have to” and everyone just nods their head in resignation as if we weren’t killing the entire biosphere off for a vacuous series of scams nested inside of one another.
AI is invaluable to the ruling class just for accomplishing that alone.
What I find frustrating about the current wave of “AI” is how much it obfuscates any meaningful discussion about the utility of different methods and approaches.
Does Machine Learning or Machine Vision have a role in decarbonisation? Probably yes but it will require thought (and carbon accounting to make sure savings large enough!).
Do LLMs or other GenAI techniques designed to pump out rehashes of existing images or text at tremendous energy cost? No.
Are either of them “Artificial Intelligence” or are either of them likely to become “Artificial Intelligence”? No.
Without reading the article: means all targets have been cancelled by big tech.
We have surplus interconnection. We have the opportunity to put more resources behind existing points of interconnection and use that system more efficiently. So, the reality is to solve the power for AI, we need the AI to come back and help us do it.
How better can we feed the beast they say? Well put it in charge of supply of course!