The INSANE effect of Artificial Intelligence on Climate Change. 

Yes, and I don't think the video really addresses that. In the rush to promote exciting innovations, it doesn't stop to ask why. The lighting and heating solutions for large offices (no mention of the cloud computing consumption offset) don't answer the question of why we need all these offices. What are all these companies providing? Do we need any of the stuff being peddled? Are they simply moving money around the money system, like so many financial districts of the world? The efficiencies we're actually targetting are the ones that assume everything stays exactly the same as it is. Of course, the biggest efficiency savings that we could make are those introduced by ending our economic growth system. The system that insists everyone is born into debt and needs a mortgage (or rent) and thus must have a job. These are system constructs, and are exceptionally inefficient. They drive people to monetise absolutely every inch of existence. I (because I'm part of the problem) look around my oversized home, and at least 50% of the stuff in it could go tomorrow and I'd happily get by. Things sold as comfort, progress etc, that are actually nothing of the sort - they only exist because of the need for economic growth, solving problems that don't really exist. It gets worse when I look at the endless screeds of tat that my children have been bought, placing them firmly on the consumption path. The endless toys sold at my daughter, too young to understand the system, with parents too tired and distracted to make the case for not buying this shite. Each item with its own lifecycle of emissions and waste, destined for landfill, of course. If we lived in an economy that had no advertising, no marketing, with a focus on living with just enough. That laughed at those with too much, because they're the real idiots (me included). An economy that didn't measure success by growth and wealth by having stuff. Imagine how much we could do away with? Imagine there was no such thing as the social and economic concept of the commute? Wouldn't that be progress? The magical solutions in Dave's well presented video are simply an extension of the problem. They don't actually solve anything, and nor are they intended to. Each one of these products is designed to sell and to make money for their owners. They are all based on the premise that they need to sell more to make more money, and perfectly align with the growth model. I wonder if Dave (sorry to pick on you Dave!) has considered that he'll still be here in 10 (and 20) years time making exactly the same videos? Perhaps he can make a video on it! It is a sobering thought. I suspect the thing that will supplant Dave's videos is not that there will be no need for his messages, but that some technological development has made his output redundant without solving the underlying problems.

Less is more for everybody. Dont consume what you can, consume, what you need and teach that philosophy to your friends and neighbours. Capitalism will collaps, the only question is, when. If you have learned to live with less then you will be able to cope. Also, your life will be so much better and richer for it.

Fellow 63 year old Irish-Kiwi here 😁 Our species population is being corrected by climate change. Current behaviours can support about 2 billion. At least half of us will die. Marginal areas will be most effected. AI would do better as the governors of sustainable policies, but we are too short sighted to allow this.

@@ArohaKiwi there's nothing short sighted about not allowing AI to govern us! AI, or LLMs, are programmed by humans, with human goals. What particular goal would an AI have otherwise? What would it want? They are all programmed within the existing system, and thus heavily biased towards the metrics and standards of the existing system. Hence why we have AI trying to calculate ever-efficient methods to perform activity X, without actually asking: "why are you doing activity X, anyway?". AI is the answer to nothing, other than more economic growth and more resource use.

Thoughts from a 61YO Aussie So right, our whole mental attitude has changed as a human race. We used to care for each other and work to enhance the human race and the planet. Now we are taught to be competitive, you MUST win, you MUST have better than the other person, if they do better, knock them down rather than study and practice to better yourself. This is all part of the corporate attitude as well, beat others, knock down what others build so you can win, even at the expense of the world. The Government is the same, just look at terminology we have government and "OPPOSITION" , if only they/we could work together ! Why do our shopping centres need a 15 meter diagonal display on the outside of a building 24 hours a day, to use power and remind us we are missing out. City buildings with lights on all night, why ? Air conditioning to make us a cold 18c in Summer and Hot 24c in winter, set them for a mild 21c always. And no more AirCon on all day for the Dogs at home, pushing heat outside for everyone else to deal with. Mind you now we have so much solar and wind we are starting to look for additional load for our grid, only 4 years ago we had to Shed Load in summer. We need more shared batteries.

Absolutely correct, because they can't stall the growth model. Consume or be consumed. People want the same lifestyle (it's a hard sell to change that lifestyle) so it easier and more profitable to sell you something more efficient. I bought a small very efficient 1 litre petrol car and a electric push bike at a cost of around £7500. Both of these are more efficient than what I had before but that £7500 would have got a lot of petrol in the old car maybe around 40-45,000 miles. The bike has meant I do half the amount of car miles though. But how long do I have to ride it to offset it's Co2 production cost. Considering also that the battery has a lifespan. Our old 60% efficient boiler system was removed in favour of a Heat Pump that is around 400% efficient at a large expense 🤔 Personally I'm doing these things for the benefit of the natural world not bothered so much about people they can adapt and overcome, animals cannot if too much change happens too fast. But I've not really changed my behaviour/lifestyle just the systems I'm using to do the same tasks. Is it fruitless maybe, maybe not... Sorry waffled on a bit there was just bored and wanted to say something to someone about it all Comments for the algorithm 😂

It's true we naturally get used to having conveniences, and it's hard to give them up. Part of the "fancy lights" is that it consumes much less Copper and adds controls consuming far less than wireless controlled lights. During the IMPEL cohort from lbl.gov, we calculated LC would save 1.3Gton of CO2 if widely adopted vs traditional lighting. Every little bit counts.

Agrowth > green growth > degrowth

We should promote both public transportation and EVs like china did.

There's immensely more important issues such as the power sources which feed into the grid, global agriculture and farming practices, industrial building solutions such as production of concrete, efficiency of technologies... basically corporate profit races in unregulated conditions.

Didn't I hear something about moving them into orbit and feeding off the sun? IIRC it was fairly recently ...

These systems are the biggest growth area of energy consumption. They will pale into complete insignificance any energy savings made by them.

@@Jacob-yb6bv I don't think you're right about that.

@@jameslamb4573 That was already torn apart by Scott Manley, the radiators on such a data centre would be ridiculous and the whole thing would be too large to manoeuvre around space junk. A data centre in orbit is a one way trip to Kepler syndrome.

@@jameslamb4573 Investor scam, it is stupid and works only if you think about it for 10 seconds. Moving stuff into space is too expensive, and datacenters arent small computers that consume loads of energy, they are big computers. Secondly it becomes impossible to do routine maintinance of these systems because getting tech support there costs you a rocket and needs weeks of planning in advance. The machines we send into space are relatively simple. Yes, they have tons of top engineers working on them, but most of it is making sure it survives in spaces, all the telescopes are just cameras that send simple data back to Earth as far as I know. I am probably wrong, but it is still much much simpler then a datacenter. Thirdly even in space the amount of solar panels required to power it is too great, you would need much much much greater area of just solar panels then the mass of the computers. Datacenters are large buildings, you would need 20 times that square area of solar panels for that. Even ignoring the cost of putting that stuff up there it would still spew so much space junk in forms of tiny metal splinters over time and potentially crash into other space junk. And finally the problem of heating. Yes, space is extremely cold, but its also practically a vacuum. There is no air that would transfer the heat out, so you would have to rely solely on infrared radiation, which is extremely inefficient. Actually smart idea would be to build them near really cold shores with some power source nearby, something like Iceland potentially, but those places are rare and they also have governments that have different laws and problems with citizenship and people worrying about outsourcing stuff.

Imagine if businesses had to pay for travel costs that workers currently shoulder in order to go into an office.

As a European I’m becoming a bit tired of having to write this, but here in Europe etc. etc…

Agree 100%

Half of the things you've enumerated are the things the AI is proven to be great at handling. You've made a great case for the "buzzword", not against it.

Those are things that you can do without relying on AI. The problem is people lump any kind of software usage as "AI". AI in layman context has become a marketing term

AI is the magic spice you sprinkle on everything to make it taste better

​@@DSAK55to make it cost more.

@@JonathanFrost thankfully we have a fusion reactor in the sky

Thank you, no one consistently brings this point forward enough. His core point about avoiding use - conservation before efficiency- stands, however, as does the idea that raising input cost lowers total usage and inspires substitutes and innovation. Imperfect answers but answers nonetheless.

People uncritically spout Jevon's paradox. If I buy an efficient car or improve insulation TO USE LESS ENERGY, I _don't_ immediately go blow the money saved on consuming more energy!! I'm more likely to invest it in further energy saving. People _aren't_ trying to maximize their economic output. And for companies Jevon's paradox is subsumed by the general critique that their economic motivation is to grow, so _any_ kind of efficiency improvement tends to result in more economic activity which has environmental consequences. That's a valid critique of growth economics that don't fully account for externalities, and it's why companies have to be held to their commitments to be "carbon neutral" by some far-off 20X0 even when they grow and enter new businesses like the current AI boom.

What does that tell us about economics and economists?

@@adamnealis They have tunnel vision.

I don't work well from home. I'd rather watch videos or play games than do boring work. In the boring office there are no distractions so work is less boring than doing nothing.

​@@jwnomad We definitely will still need some office space, some people work better in in-person environments and some actions just can't be done remotely. However, we can for sure reduce the amount of office space and have less people in the office.

@@jwnomad It's not for everyone, and not all the time. I just think it should be your choice if that's something you can do from home.

​@@jwnomadwell you can go to the (now smaller) office then, as long as you aren't trying to force everyone to do what _you_ want to, it's all good

I agree 👍

When I was a teen in the nineties, I read a book my father had bought as a teen in the seventies. The authors argued that we should think of nature as a life-support system on spaceship earth. We destroy it, we die. The idea has certainly been around for long enough. It just didn't have much of an impact.

It's one reason why my parent's country planted 1.5m trees and their next target is 1bn trees The point of reforestation in Pakistan also helps greatly with floods. It's a win / win. I like how in Wales, they plant a tree for every child born there too. We should really do that in England too imo

International. AND Intergenerational.

Totally agree there

How do you decide which things It may not be needed for? Until you've tried using it to analyze something you have no idea what improvements it can find that you hadn't thought of yet.

​@@jimthain8777 As someone who spent years working at a senior level in IT I'm acutely aware that the latest buzzword has to be crammed into projects to get them financed, irrespective of the potential real benefits. AI is suffering a huge hype at the moment, with most projects predicted to fail. So what is uncertain (as you admit) is the potential benefit, but what is not in doubt is the environmental cost. So those things need to be weighed against each other.

@@jimthain8777shit like ChatGPT and image/video generators are guzzling energy and water and they are not necessary.

​@@jimthain8777 You judge whether those things could have been done without the energy hungry ai. Anyone can tell you that running the air con in an empty building is stupid and there are plenty of ways to set timers on things without needing an ai to turn off devices after close. The rest of this stuff isn't things we haven't thought of it's things management hasn't bothered with, triple glazed windows and insulation lower cooling bills who could have thought of such a thing, maybe in a few years the AI will be advanced enough to tell us to install curtains.

That's probably either an extremely cheap holiday or you need to start turning a few lights off, even if you're still running on incandescent🤔 But of course your point is right, if people save money on something they're eventually going to spend it on something else, which could be even worse for the planet.

You’re absolutely right, it’s called the Jevons principal. For example, the industrial revolution took off only when James Watt produced his much more efficient steam engine. Similarly, aviation has boomed with today’s more efficient jet engines.

You can't limit the consumption in this economic system. Consumption is directly converted to profits and profit is sacred in capitalism. So, with capitalism we are doomed.

@@AntonBrazhnyk- consumption isn’t due to capitalism, it is human nature. Capitalism does and has, however, pulled billions of people out of abject poverty.

The most likely and sure method to limit consumption in todays connected world is to limit humans. Since everyone likes have a toothbrush made by some factory so effectively that they get a great deal on it (so it goes with shoes, clothes, food, and every other so-called consumer good) no one is going to volunteer to give up the conveniences of our industrialized lifestyle. We wouldn't know how to start! I certainly don't. So it will take death to allow anyone the pull that toothbrush out of my grasp if we take this notion to its logical conclusion.

The numbers aren't good but it's not the present number that has caused the present CO2 level. "The richest one percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity during a critical 25-year period of unprecedented emissions growth." - Oxfam

@@jamesgrover2005 The poorest half of humanity deserves a decent life. Fortunately, they will be able to use cheap solar and wind technology from China to improve their lives without polluting the air. They will be able to use GHG-free concrete and steel to build things that they need, because people in developed nations have invented technology that will allow that. By the time they can afford to fly in airplanes, those planes will be far cleaner, perhaps fossil-free. I would worry a lot more about what all those poor people would do when they finally get some resources, but they can now leapfrog the Western world, going directly to the future without passing through the coal age.

​@@incognitotorpedo42 That's a lovely story, and may even be happening in a few areas, but the evil multinationals are never going to just roll over and die when they have so much power. You would think no new populace would be smoking, now that "everyone" knows how bad it is for you, but those aspirational populations are just seen as the next new market and all the same tricks that were employed to keep their product around our developed countries for so long (and still not banned, note) are employed again by the merchants of doubt and evil. The fossil fuel corps might not LET the green tech you speak of flourish any further than a lab and a video here. They have captured the governments via campaign donations and other bribery and thus they make the rules and incentives. We only see enough tinkering around the edges to prevent a full-on revolution, real change is not going to happen while they are pulling the strings and techno-feudalism is the system we all simmer in.

To not increase the economy might be OK for the developed countries For 80% of humanity however it's either growth or poverty

You see they are restarting TMI in order to power AI? This will not offset fossil fuel emissions a one bit. Jevon's paradox par excellence.

@@toadvine9264 How does a nuclear plant not offset fossil fuel emissions if it replaces coal or natural gas fired generation?

​@Azknowledgethirsty The growth problem talked about includes the human species, too. The crux of all the dilemmas is that there are too many humans. We are an infestation.

​@@AzknowledgethirstyNonsense. Mathematically impossible infinite growth is not even remotely the only way to reduce poverty, just the main way in the current fundamentally flawed (and ultimately impossible) model. What's more, the model actually encourages and ultimately can only lead to more inequality, which is the actual issue. A set number for 'poverty' is nonsense - what is poverty in one location is enough for all your necessities in another. The inequality in a system is what determines whether you can afford to eat, and so any system with an endpoint of maximising inequality will only ever fail at reducing 'poverty' longterm. If the rich countries committed to immediate degrowth and caps on energy and resource use, maybe we could get away with using that flawed model to enable poorer countries to set themselves up to ensure everyone is able to access necessities. But that would entail not just an end to unfair competition, but also active technology transfer, ending unfair and illegal debts, and (in the capitalist mindset) boosting your competitors' competitiveness. There's a reason that hasn't happened yet and never will.

Yes! I would watch you on there right away

Amory's great. I saw a tour of his house on PBS a decade or 2 ago. We should've started building houses like that at least by then but still aren't.

Yes, that book is a hallmark.

@@thethegreenmachine Modern building codes have adopted a lot of the principles of houses like Amory's, without going to such extremes. I'm in the middle of a project that will enhance the building envelope on my house that was built in 1960. Compared to modern homes, houses built when mine was are garbage when it comes to energy waste. I've improved it a lot and will do more, but modern buildings already have what I'm doing, and more.

PassiveHouse is a big part of our passion for doing this. It's trivial for us to put Humidity and temperature sensors in the light switches because they are just inputs to command the lights, not actually switching the power. This makes them "UIs", more suited to doing beneficial User Interface stuff.

I think it will simply because it thinks of solutions we haven't had the foggiest idea even existed. That's not saying it's a panacea for all our problems, it isn't, and it does come with significant costs of its own.

Not sure about this, AI, like Bitcoin is energy price sensitive. You can't just go to your local supplier and say "I need a 50MW connection" let alone the upstream impacts. I think any new DCs are going to have to pay infrastructure as well as usage costs to implement.

NEGAWATTS!

Did you investigate insert windows that go over existing windows?

Worse when there’s little accountability in the public sector yet they then claim “poorness” and demand more public cash - turn off the effing lights that aren’t in use then - kids’ school is a prime example- so much waste going unnoticed yet always on the scrounge for more money - I’ve called them out a number of times - another example having heating going and then flinging all the doors and windows open - staff boiling full kettles of water for one cup - the list goes on 🤦‍♂️

This will change in the quite near future. But it won't be AI that fixes it.

Yes the use of smart meters sounds OK but it fails to take into account that the electricity usage is directly related to the daily demands of society. WFH should help with this but that is being dismantled by inadequate company managers and politicians.

if iot uses the cloud it generates more pollution that what it made during it's inception and constantly as long as it is been used, and several times more if it also uses AI

Explain to me where the economics for human need (over greed) was ever the norm and how things worked out. It has been capitalism, a greed based system (based on the wants/needs of consumers) that has increased lifespans, lifted many out of poverty, led to many innovations, and greatly improved the quality of life. And now, Western countries move towards this notion of net zero while other countries race toward higher consumption of fossil fuels in order to boost manufacturing. The reason they prefer fossil fuel is that it is cheaper and more reliable than the green alternative. So companies in Western countries, were regulation is much higher, move their manufacturing to those countries with exploding fossil fuel use. So, now we have a compounding effect in terms of pollution output. The result is that countries best positioned to restrict the pollution of manufacturers will find themselves de-industrialized in an increasingly polluted world.

I tipping Russ is a "god fearing" citizen of the good ol' US of A. 😆

Anything you save and don't spend is accumulation. Accumulation is a good thing

@@BrentonSmythesfieldsaye And are you 1 of those extinction rebellion assholes blocking intersections?

@@jimsimpson2820 Only that wasn't the context of the opening post.

Yes, their energy use is enormous and growing. Any savings will be lost to the technology running these systems.

This seems to be happening in many countries {enter conspiracy theory here}

@@jamesgrover2005 Here in the States, oil-industry FUD is convincing a lot of people that electric cars are impractical, and a lot of people believe them.

It's already being programmed in on EV chargers.

We had a president here in the states named Jimmy Carter. He was your man. Not so much for our system however. He was a one termer followed by Reagan. And so it goes.

Vote for a stiff and increasing carbon tax, with half the proceeds rebated to poor people and the other half invested in energy efficiency. Most economists agree this is the most efficient and effective way to reduce emissions.

Hopefully energy performance certificates will help with this

Not nearly as insane as solving money problems with more money, which is a fundamental foundation of economics.

Agreed. And you know what's even more insane? Allowing personal wealth to grow and concentrate without any limit whatsoever.

That's the case in many modern buildings. In the older building where I worked the lights and HVAC would shut off at 7pm, then the cleaners would come in at 9pm, turn them on again... and then they would run all night.

We made our 1903 timber-clad house more energy efficient and comfortable with passive solar principles. We enclosed small courtyard, turning it into a ‘garden room’ with one glass wall and a polycarbonate roof. We enclosed an east facing verandah with pull-down, clear plastic blinds. These two changes greatly reduced drafts and retained solar heat. Then we placed insulation everywhere we could in ceilings and walls, installed solar panels, a solar water heater (evacuated tube style) and two heat pumps. We get a feed-in tariff credit for summer and autumn, saving us several hundred (Australian) dollars each year.

We've done that in Australia for nearly a century and it works fine. For the last 50 years it's been controlled by the network "controlled load" and it works perfectly and it's completely transparent to the consumer. Hot water comes out of the tap when you want it and nothing else is required to manage it.

PS, there's no need for any IOT gubbins to make this work. Just a relay in the meter box. It's a complete con to make out that any computers are needed.

Equality and education of women are the primary drivers of lower birthrates.

Cool Worlds channel has episode of how this might just might be “reasonably crazy” POV from physics POV however narrowly

I started about 5 years ago :) It's long been common to see solar boiler panels on Spanish rooftops

​@@jamesgrover2005draught & no drink water, thé 1sts probléms, after massive DeHEATing of sources

I started 13 years ago. Its not common here in Norway 😅

I read only this morning that over 93% of Cyprus homes heat their water by solar only.

Solar thermal heating is wonky and prone to breakage. I have the scars to prove it. It is better to put up more solar photovoltaic panels to make your own generally useful electricity, and use some of that to power a heat pump for domestic hot water.

Most economists agree that a stiff, rising carbon tax on fossil fuels encourages the most effective reductions. But bribes and the threat of angry confused mobs keeps it off the table.

I don’t know maybe let the consumer and citizen decide what we pay for.

​@@pcampbell3068By that metric you're also deciding what not to pay for (or more accurately, what companies can get away with shifting the cost of onto you). The average beefburger in the US would be about $48 if the externalities of air, water and soil pollution, greenhouse gases, antibiotic resistance, land use change etc were factored in. Are you happy for the company to dump that cost on the public rather than be forced to minimise the externalities (and therefore both damage and ultimate cost to the public) to produce better burgers?

Expand your TLAs! (Distribution Network Operator, never heard of it until today.)

@@jburt56 thinking in systems 👍