AI is not going anywhere. It’s proved its use. We can limit its ability to be used by people, and we can put brakes on how much energy can be spent on training models, but it’s not like we can un-create what we spent the last 15 years creating. The marginal cost of using an AI once trained is negligible. This is different from, say, driving a gas-powered car with the argument “the oil’s already been extracted from the earth, might as well use it.” Using an AI does not directly contribute to climate change. Supporting unethical AI companies may, though.
The real problem is that we are using non-green power sources. My area uses hydro, wind, and solar, so AI run and trained here has no climate impact.
AI is not going anywhere. It’s proved its use. We can limit its ability to be used by people, and we can put brakes on how much energy can be spent on training models, but it’s not like we can un-create what we spent the last 15 years creating. The marginal cost of using an AI once trained is negligible. This is different from, say, driving a gas-powered car with the argument “the oil’s already been extracted from the earth, might as well use it.” Using an AI does not directly contribute to climate change. Supporting unethical AI companies may, though.
The real problem is that we are using non-green power sources. My area uses hydro, wind, and solar, so AI run and trained here has no climate impact.