[holyra]

"If you resist AI, it helps to ask why"

I am not intrinsically opposed AI. I am opposed to its environmental and social impacts. I constantly see spamming AI bots that send zillions of useless or poor-quality PRs to OSS. I see PRs that add features, but are really huge, making maintenance even harder in the future without the help of AI. AI creates bloatware everywhere. I see AI trained on stolen data without respecting licenses. I see data centers popping up at a scale never seen, consuming more and more energy. more and more resources (They basically consumed all RAM/SSD of 2026).

"It drives rising energy prices in poor communities, disrupts wildlife and fresh water supplies, increases pollution, and stresses global supply chains. It re-enforces the horrible, dangerous working conditions that miners in many African countries are enduring to supply rare metals like Cobalt for the billions of new chips that this boom demands. And at a moment when the climate demands immediate action to reduce our footprint on this planet, the AI boom is driving data centers to consume a full 1.5% of the world’s total energy production in order to eliminate jobs and replace them with a robot that lies." [0]

I am tired of people that have no concerns about climate change or the impact of their collective actions on other humans. I hope that one day everyone will be judged for their role in this system.

[0] https://drewdevault.com/2026/03/25/2026-03-25-Forking-vim.ht...

[surgical_fire]

I use AI. I think it is moderately useful. I also think it's a sort of dead end technology that will die sooner or later because the economics make no sense, and likely never will.

It's also very destructive in a societal and environmental level. I didn't pick this music though. The only thing I can do is either dance or stand around while it plays.

> I am tired of people that have no concerns about climate change or the impact of their collective actions on other humans. I hope that one day everyone will be judged for their role in this system.

I have a more practical approach - I reject that individual action is meaningful to fight climate change.

Ir requires societal and political action for anything meaningful that might move this needle. Individual action will do nothing to fix systemic problems, you will only giving yourself a debuff for nothing.

Vote for parties that want to tackle the issue seriously, support initiatives at societal and political level that may so something in the right direction, etc.

"I am not using AI because it has a negative effect in climate change" will do nothing while a gargantuan amount of money is pumped into it so GPUs may turn electricity into bullshit text, code of questionable quality, and images of dubious taste.

[coffeefirst]

The question is so loaded… these are tools. I’m evaluating them like any other tool and using them where they’re helpful and not where I perceive them to be unnecessary or cause trouble.

It also seems to me that some people are leaning on them for things they should not be. It can help you research psychology; it cannot be your therapist.

In these strange times, apparently that makes me “resisting” or “a Luddite.”

[hellisothers]

I’m not discounting you feeling this way but this argument feels performative or virtue signaling in the same way I’ve had to deal with people making the same argument about “I don’t have kids because children ruin the planet, we all should have less kids”. There are so many “what about”s here that unless the person making the argument is living in tent sustainably growing their own food that it doesn’t feel like it’s intellectually honest.

[swed420]

> I’m not discounting you feeling this way

proceeds to discount parent comment with handwavey argumentation

[FromTheFirstIn]

There’s actually a humongous range of ecological impact between tent and data center.

[subhobroto]

> constantly see spamming AI bots that send zillions of useless or poor-quality PRs to OSS. I see PRs that add features, but are really huge, making maintenance even harder in the future without the help of AI

Is there a possibility of using automation to fix this very issue? Before you admonish me of burning more carbon to address output of burnt carbon, hear me out.

For example: if these PRs are on GitHub, then we have a set of actions that:

- run a regression test suite to ensure there are no net new bugs.

- Then it verifies whether the PR has high quality tests for the feature they're implementing

- runs a suite of complexity, readability, security tests and gathers metrics about them, automatically closing poor quality PRs and even blocking accounts that submit them?

I argue these automation are great to have for any project - those that have AI contributions or not.

> I see data centers popping up at a scale never seen, consuming more and more energy. more and more resources (They basically consumed all RAM/SSD of 2026).

> consume a full 1.5% of the world’s total energy production in order to eliminate jobs and replace them with a robot that lies

From my perspective, this is an extremely reductive view of AI. My view is that we are fundamentally undergoing a shift in knowledge work and these are all costs that will bear fruit for decades to come.

Imagine freeways being built on barren land. In decades to come it will bear fruit entire new cities and farms. Right now all that construction for those freeways in progress alarm anyone thinking of the climate but the farms that will be possible thanks to these freeways will offset the debt and even support the cities around them.

[thereitgoes456]

GPUs expire after 6 years.

[hparadiz]

I promise you I spent more energy air conditioning my house this month than the collective energy of all my prompts over the past year to date while refinaries are being blown up in multiple countries right now. It's a silly argument. The hardware coming out now is 10x faster while using the same amount of energy as a regular desktop while I'm gaming. I legit can't take this "please think of the environment" argument seriously. The math ain't mathing.

[surgical_fire]

Neither are yours.

Any talk of new AI datacenters is peppered with its humongous energy needs. A cursory internet search can point to that: https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-supply-for-...

> Global electricity generation to supply data centres is projected to grow from 460 TWh in 2024 to over 1 000 TWh in 2030

Just to be clear, 540TWh is the yearly energy consumption of developed industrialized countries. It would sit in between Germany and Canada as of today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...

I offered data. You offered vibes.

"Math ain't mathing". The nerve of these pricks.

[hparadiz]

I'm quoting directly measured usage and you are making shit up from Wikipedia.

[surgical_fire]

The first link I posted is from IEA directly.

The Wikipedia link I posted is not "me making shit up". That page is sourced from https://ember-energy.org/data/yearly-electricity-data/

You, on the other hand, provided no sources. You claim to be quoting directly measured usage. But, unlike me, you provided no sources.

It is clear who is the one making shit up here.

[hparadiz]

I've used less electricity on AI this entire year than you've spent on VRChat. Maybe worry about yourself.

[surgical_fire]

Then you need to have generated electricity somehow. I've never used VRChat.

Just one more thing you were wrong about. Not that it matters, you being wrong, seemingly, is something that occurs very frequently.