[jve]

> At Chrome's scale, the climate bill for one model push, paid in atmospheric CO2 by the entire planet, is between six thousand and sixty thousand tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions, depending on how many devices receive the push.

Environmental analysis for operations? Not a fan of thinking in such terms.

> For users on capped mobile data plans, particularly in regions where smartphone-as-only-internet is dominant (much of Africa, much of South and Southeast Asia, most of Latin America), 4 GB of unrequested download is on the order of a month's data allowance, vapourised by Chrome on the user's behalf. Google has not, to my knowledge, published any analysis of the welfare impact of this on the populations whose internet access is metered.

THIS is a valid concern. Otherwise I'm not buying into "ask for consent because of dependency X". Users don't like questions/consents.

However OS (at least windows) has an way to set network connection as a metered so software can make informed decisions. Also Android has "Data Saver" function which should also be honored by software.

[PatronBernard]

> Environmental analysis for operations? Not a fan of thinking in such terms.

Why not? It's about 60 000 London - New York City flights by the way (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/...). And what's the benefit again?

[pu_pe]

Some parts of the anti-AI movement are becoming so unhinged that now any use of compute is considered an environmental threat. This degrowth mentality needs to die.

[wartywhoa23]

Should I reminder you what unlimited growth means and how it ends up in biology? Society/technology is no exception.

[pu_pe]

No need for unlimited growth, just normal sustainable progress like the one that allows you and me to communicate here after centuries of technological progress.

[pier25]

> No need for unlimited growth

Well then at some point you need to stop growing.

[account42]

The "AI" craze has been very far from normal or sustainable.

[PatronBernard]

Ah yes, sustainable progress, like we're doing now?

[vrganj]

The "normal sustainable progress" has already pushed us to the brink of extinction. AI is rapidly accelerating our resource use, with nothing good to show for it.

[lxgr]

How exactly are we "on the brink of extinction"? ("We" as in humans; many other species are obviously not as lucky.)

We are probably on the brink of very bad consequences for a signification fraction of all humans (up to and including all of them, to some extent), which is a huge problem that needs to be addressed.

But what do you gain by incorrectly labeling that as "extinction"? Because you do definitely lose credibility for it, similarly to everybody using hyperbolic language such as "boiling the oceans" etc.

[farfatched]

If it's emissions they worry about, then it's anything emitting.

Are they against washing machines too? Or are they just grandfathered in?

[pjc50]

This is literally why the EU mandates appliance energy efficiency.

It's never a binary thing. "Is using energy good or bad?" is a stupid question which can only provide stupid answers. It has to be placed in the context of whether it's proportionate to benefit.

Things which burn a lot of energy for little benefit - and in the case of AI, often negative benefit - end up more towards the "bad".

[farfatched]

That's a fair point.

I hadn't considered that societies rightfully impose standards on these things.

I consider it too early to judge the cost-benefit, but it's fair that others might have already evaluated that. I rescind my comment.

[zekrioca]

Don't be disingenuous. Not all energy is created equally.

[newtonsmethod]

Are we back to magic water and magic soil? Does the energy have some morality attached to it?

The emissions per kWh of energy used in providing internet downloads probably is similar to that per kWh of energy used for washing clothes.

[Aachen]

You're not seriously trying to explain that a kWh is equal to a kWh. Why not cut the crap? Are you trying to say washing clothes is of equal importance to convenience features in a browser, given that we can use each clean kWh only once? I can't tell what you truly mean like this

[frozenseven]

>a kWh is equal to a kWh

Yes, and it's none of your business how other people spend their electricity.

[vrganj]

Our planet is literally dying.

The oceans are boiling [0], marine life is dying [1]. Land close to the water will be land under water soon [2]. The ice caps are melting and setting free all sorts of diseases. [3]

Large parts of our planet on fire all the time now, here's one from Australia from this year [4], but I'm sure you've read about wildfires in Australia last year, California every year, Greece last year etc etc.

What you're proposing is nothing short of a death cult. It's either degrowth or we all die, sacrificed at the altar of capitalism.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/09/profound...

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-026-03013-5

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02299-w

[3] https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/could-microbes-l...

[4] https://phys.org/news/2026-01-australia-declares-state-disas...?

[pu_pe]

Why do you attribute to capitalism an issue that is much more fundamental than it? People want more stuff and better lives, it's as simple as that. Even hunger/gatherer societies brought themselves to extinction multiple times in the past, and I doubt the USSR would have fared better against climate change.

Technological progress is also societal progress. If we embraced degrowth in the 1800's (there was a ton of pollution back then, and a Malthusian belief in disaster!) we might not see slavery being abolished or women being able to vote.

[Aachen]

> People want more stuff and better lives, it's as simple as that.

Not everyone wants this at the cost of others. It's not as simple as that / not a necessary consequence of our desire to find clever solutions to solve everyday inconveniences

[vrganj]

Because capitalism ties together better lives an ideological belief in unbounded growth.

Will people's lives really be better once they're drowning or choking on wildfire smoke? But hey, at least they had cheap junk!

It's possible to have better lives as well as societal progress without endless growth. Technological progress, too, doesn't have to mean burning our oceans. We just gotta actually think about the costs and consequences of our actions.

Not every technological development is inherently good. Sometimes the cost is not worth the result. I posit the cost of AI so far has been astronomical, higher than anything else in living memory. The results on the other hand have been rather middling.

This is my issue. A cost/benefit analysis, not a strict no to progress.

[lobito25]

You're also dying since you were born.

[jve]

Have you ever made a decision to NOT download something, turn on your computer, experiment, etc based on your perceived impact on the planet?

I mean this should (and is) be tackled at the source: 0/low emission energy generation and not consumer having to think about these decisions. Sustainable data centers using renewables etc. But not that the companies should associate/evaluate/consider bytes downloaded with environmental impact.

[duskdozer]

>not consumer having to think about these decisions

Consumers vote and advocate for what they want and don't want. There are many who say it's not an individual problem and should be dealt with broadly through regulation, then also oppose any attempts at regulation.

[Aachen]

> this should (and is) be tackled at the source: 0/low emission energy generation and not consumer having to think about these decisions.

Until we're at that point though, the 'winners' in this market society (that wield unimaginable amounts of money = resources) such as Google could certainly think about consequences of their choices. And they usually do to some extent, I'm not saying they don't, just that electric supply and demand has two sides to it

[vrganj]

I'm going to assume you work in tech and know the issues that come with scale.

Me, individually not doing something is gonna absolutely be drowned out by the scale of many other people not thinking of it or being incentivized against it.

This is a systemic issue. A systemic issue needs a systemic solution, not a blame shift to the individual.

We didn't get rid of lead in gas or asbestos in walls by telling people it was bad for them. We did so by banning it.

[mschuster91]

> However OS (at least windows) has an way to set network connection as a metered so software can make informed decisions. Also Android has "Data Saver" function which should also be honored by software.

Unfortunately, that automation is unreliable. It doesn't work across operating systems - Windows laptops won't enable data-saver mode when connected to iPhones and macOS laptops won't when connected to Android phones, and neither will enable it when connected to, say, public transport wifi.

And even if the OS has the information, websites can't reliably use it either. Firefox and Safari both don't implement the NetworkInformation API [1].

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NetworkInfo...

[SwellJoe]

I know it takes extra steps to make Android perform OS or app updates over LTE. I doubt it's downloading a 4GB model over LTE unless the user has chosen to perform updates over LTE.