[lubujackson]

Let's assume advances in harnesses, models and efficiency continue to rapidly improve. Let's say we only run on solar power.

The concept of "waste" completely shifts. Like in 1990, I had to decide if dow loading an image was worth it, because it would take 5 minutes or more. Now, it isn't even a remote concern, even though images are clearly "wasting" bandwidth sending a 12mb image to my tiny phone screen.

It is much more interesting to think about the cultural impact of that shift. You can be concerned about the impact of AI on various fronts, but worrying about "waste" is tilting at windmills.

[afry1]

Let's say that Trump was pretty ambivalent about AI until Sam Altman and co informed him that they would have to build a ton of new fossil fuel infrastructure to power the data centers that would be necessary to scale the technology.

Wouldn't you know that, now we're all in on AI, poisoning poor neighborhoods with natural gas turbines, and driving up GHG emissions to do ... Uh, what again?