gerrymcgovern

gerrymcgovern , 2 days ago to random

• Billionaires are responsible for a million times more CO2 than normal person
• 125 ultra-wealthy individuals emit more CO2 than 85 million.
• Bill Gates belches almost 7,500 tonnes of CO2 per year.
• 80 million cause more CO2 than the poorest 5 billion people.
• The top 1% are responsible for more environmental damage than the poorest 50%
• Top 1% get about 40% of all new wealth created. Poorest 50% get 2%.

gerrymcgovern , 4 days ago to random

ChatGPT is "better understood as bullshit: the models are in an important way indifferent to the truth of their outputs. We distinguish two ways in which the models can be said to be bullshitters, and argue that they clearly meet at least one of these definitions. We further argue that describing AI misrepresentations as bullshit is both a more useful and more accurate way of predicting and discussing the behaviour of these systems."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5

gerrymcgovern , 4 days ago to random

"A company that adopts generative AI for something where they used to use more traditional optimization methods is probably using 10 to 20 times more carbon to do that, so if improvements aren't made, you're talking doubling or more in a five-year period in terms of the carbon footprint of the information technology that we do."

Big data centers that places like OpenAI are planning to build are gigawatt-scale data centers. That is as much energy as medium-sized cities.

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/sustainable-computing-in-the-new-world-of-ai

gerrymcgovern , 9 days ago to random

62 million tons. This is the volume of “e-waste” – generated worldwide in 2022. It is up 82% since 2010.

Having long gone to Asia, e-waste from Europe and the US is arriving in huge quantities in West Africa ports, in violation of international treaties. Ghana has seen the proliferation of informal open-air landfill sites that have come even closer to people’s homes after the dismantling of the massive Agbogbloshie scrapyard site in July 2021.

https://africanarguments.org/2024/06/photo-essay-tracing-the-secret-complex-life-of-e-waste-in-ghana/

gerrymcgovern , 11 days ago to random

The Hunter-Gatherers spent 80% of their time gathering plants and herbs. So, why don’t we call them Gatherer-Hunters? Oh, I know. Because that would hurt the snowflake egos of men, who like to see themselves as Great Hunters. Even though, often, it was the women who did the hunting as well. Us poor men can never catch a break in this woke culture. Never mind, some tech bros have invented The Great Big Lying Machine to fix reality for us.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/07/01/1184749528/men-are-hunters-women-are-gatherers-that-was-the-assumption-a-new-study-upends-i

gerrymcgovern , 13 days ago to random

As if Microsoft isn't doing enough damage to the environment, Windows 10 support ending could be an environmental disaster that puts 240 million PCs on the scrapheap

Microsoft needs to rethink Windows 10 support deadline, analyst firm warns

https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/windows-10-support-ending-could-be-an-environmental-disaster-that-puts-240-million-pcs-on-the-scrapheap

How greedy can you get, Microsoft?

gerrymcgovern , 16 days ago to random

"The Jaw-dropping environmental impact of Large-Language-Models (LLMs). Assuming static usage of 100 million weekly active users (ex. OpenAI chatGPT) and just 5 queries per user per week, the total energy consumption for operating an LLM like GPT-3.5 is staggering—around 44,200 MWh per year."

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaushlendratrivedi_digitalsustainability-ai-climatechange-activity-7197497699351302144-tZYn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

gerrymcgovern , 17 days ago to random

Since 1970, there has been a:

49% decline in marine life

50% decline in insects

66% decline in wildlife

69% decline in vertebrates

83% decline in freshwater species

Birds: 60% decline in Ireland in 50 years

Lions: 90% decline in Ghana in 40 years

Forest elephant: 60% decline in 12 years

Leatherback turtle: 95% decline in 20 years

SEI whale: 50% decline in 20 years (47 left)

Earthworms: 33% decline in UK in 20 years

Mammals:

3% wildlife

97% humans and livestock

Is this progress?

gerrymcgovern , 18 days ago to random

So, this guy takes out his new AI phone from Samsung and takes a photo of the table we're sitting at. Then he does some magic stuff with his AI and shows me the picture.

"Look," he says to me. "There are three glasses on the table and in the picture there are five. Isn't AI amazing!" And he laughed.

And all I could think was that this is happening in millions of places every minute of the day. All this energy. All this water. All these materials.

Destroying our environment for this?

gerrymcgovern , 22 days ago to random

Electric vehicles are often presented as a key technology for drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions, thus helping curb climate change.

But manufacturing electric cars requires the mining of critical minerals for batteries, like lithium and cobalt, that are largely sourced in developing countries. Local traditional and Indigenous communities say the mining is already harming their way of life, damaging biodiversity, and polluting.

https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/green-credentials-of-electric-vehicles-come-under-fire/

gerrymcgovern , 23 days ago to random

"We are currently orders-of-magnitude beyond a sustainable scale. The precautionary principle tells me that we ought to wind things down dramatically and hope it’s enough—rather than try to hold on in the face of loads of evidence that it’s not working out. The best we can do is accept the ride down, in a spirit of humility, finding joy in something other than technology and modernity."

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-22/growth-or-scale/

gerrymcgovern , 23 days ago to random

"Insects and birds are disappearing at rates of 1–2% per year. The U.S. and Canada have lost an estimated 3 billion birds since 1970. Things aren’t looking great, and the alarm bells are getting louder as the mounting crisis becomes ever-more apparent. For large population declines, absolute losses can appear to be moderating, but only because fewer critters are left to eliminate."
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-22/growth-or-scale/

Devourers. What we call progress, wildlife call ecocide. We think we don't need Nature.

gerrymcgovern , 24 days ago to random

Why are we giving the richest and most powerful companies in the world tax breaks, half-price water and half-price electricity? Why does Google, Facebook and Microsoft have to be on corporate welfare?

"Environmental groups warn that without ratepayer protections, average Michigan taxpayers may be burdened with hefty costs to support data centers, akin to supporting entire cities."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/environmental-groups-raise-concerns-data-164440393.html

gerrymcgovern , 25 days ago to random

Microsoft reveals AI-powered ‘Recall’ spyware feature to transform your Windows 11’s experience and spy on everything you do every moment of every day. Microsoft justified their AI-driven year-on-year 20% water increase and 30% CO2 increase by saying: "Spying doesn't come cheap."

The AI tech bro future just keeps on getting brighter and brighter.

https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/microsoft-reveals-ai-powered-recall-feature-to-transform-windows-11s-searchability-while-confirming-hardware-requirements

gerrymcgovern , 26 days ago to random

What happens when a country has lots of "renewable" energy?

The dirtiest, most energy intense industries go there. In Iceland, bitcoin mining and aluminum smelting have thrived.

The "renewable" energy boom will in fact accelerate environmental collapse, because it encourages and gives license to the core driver of environmental collapse, which is massive overconsumption and waste.

Our crisis is cultural.
Once we were human.
Then we became consumers
Now we become devourers

We must slow down.

gerrymcgovern , 26 days ago to random

AI is a lie making machine that could kill you

AI is a grift

AI is a scam on multiple levels. From Big Tech, to the AI designers, all the way down. A scam, grift, dangerous con.

"Any readers looking to try to use these books to figure out which mushrooms were safe to eat and which weren’t would be out of luck, which to Trybuch was seriously concerning. “It could literally mean life or death” if you eat the wrong mushroom, he says."

https://www.vox.com/24141648/ai-ebook-grift-mushroom-foraging-mycological-society

gerrymcgovern , 27 days ago to random

"Degrowth calls for an organized slowing down of society, to minimize harm to humans and other species. Degrowth and post-growth proponents conceive economic growth as a major driver of environmental degradation. Beyond a certain scale, the economy is seen to enter into conflict with ecological life-support systems, the costs of growth accelerate, and environmental conflicts multiply."

https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(24)00146-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2590332224001465%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

gerrymcgovern , 29 days ago to random

When Big Tech is challenged on its energy, material and water use, it's response is always that its working on being more efficient, finding ways to keep growing but in a "greener" way.

We must challenge the Growth Death Cult.

Our environment simply cannot cope with this incessant growth of data, data centers, servers, chips, smartphones, laptops, earbuds.

There is no infinite growth on a finite planet. Driven by Big Tech, we have already bust past multiple boundaries.

It's not sustainable.

gerrymcgovern , 29 days ago to random

What good is AI if you don't have a planet to use it on?

Microsoft released its 2024 Sustainability Report on Wednesday, and it's mostly bad news. Last year, Microsoft's emissions went up 29%, and it used 23% more water, primarily due to "new technologies, including generative AI."

https://au.pcmag.com/news/105283/microsofts-emissions-spike-29-as-ai-gobbles-up-resources

The Great Lying Machine is eating our environment and spewing out toxic misinformation. Big Tech has become a clear and present danger to all our futures.

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

Why has water become such an issue for AI and data centers?

Because for years, Big Tech boosted energy efficiency and reduced CO2 by using more and more water.

It also "reduced" CO2 by causing a massive increases in e-waste.

There is the huge danger in focusing only on CO2. To reduce CO2, we often degrade other life systems such as water, soil, biodiversity.

CO2 is increasingly being used for greenwashing.

We must measure the total cost to the environment, not just part of the cost.

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

"ChatGPT consumes a lot of energy in the process, up to 25 times more than a Google search. Additionally, a lot of water is also used in cooling for the servers that run all that software. Per conversation of about 20 to 50 queries, half a litre of water evaporates – a small bottle, in other words."

AI is predicted to consume twice as much energy as the whole of France by 2030

Training GPT3, took 1,287 MWh (Megawatt hours) of electricity.

https://www.brusselstimes.com/world-all-news/1042696/chatgpt-consumes-25-times-more-energy-than-google

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

"By now it’s been made fairly clear that the bedazzling wonderment that is “AI” doesn’t come cheap. Story after story have highlighted how the technology consumes massive amounts of electricity and water, and we’re not really adapting to keep pace. This is also occurring alongside a destabilizing climate crisis that’s already putting a capacity and financial strain on aging electrical infrastructure."

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/10/ceo-ai-power-drain-could-cause-data-centers-to-run-out-of-power-within-two-years/

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

Data centers in Northern Virginia are using “absurd amounts of water”

“The region is the world’s largest data center hub, with over 300 facilities processing almost 70 percent of global digital information, each using as much as 5 million gallons of water per day. And because cooling methods often rely on evaporation, the water does not go back into wastewater systems. “Data centers rank among the top 10 water-consuming industries in the United States”

https://www.planetizen.com/news/2024/05/128903-virginia-data-centers-draining-states-water-supply

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

If it's a choice between Big Tech and the Environment, be sure that politicians will protect Big Tech every time. Big Tech can do what it wants because it essentially owns the political system. Money is the law.

"Gov. Brian Kemp overrode the state legislature late Tuesday and vetoed HB 1192, which would have paused tax credits given to data centers and began an investigation into how they impact Georgia’s energy system. State Rep. John Carson introduced the bill."

https://environmentamerica.org/georgia/media-center/gov-kemps-data-center-bill-veto-bad-for-clean-energy-clean-air-clean-water/

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

"The Yuturi Warmi, an Ecuadorian patrol group, has vowed to protect their community's land in the Amazon Rainforest from the pollution of extractive industries – and their efforts appear to be working. Along the Jatunyacu River, which later joins the Amazon River in the Napo Province, Elsa Cerda, a 43-year-old indigenous Kichwa woman, brews guayusa leaves – a native plant from the rainforest – in a pot."

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240503-the-indigenous-women-fighting-mining-in-ecuadors-amazon

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

"Google is one of the largest and most profitable multinational corporations in the world. It wants to draw perhaps up to a million gallons of water daily from our city to cool their behemoth complex. I say perhaps because we don’t really know because they haven’t made public their plans. And they want to do this during a historic drought. A drought over three and a half years old which the Department of Natural Resources has labeled the longest in Iowa since the 1950s."
https://www.thegazette.com/letters-to-the-editor/first-google-wanted-a-tax-break-now-they-want-our-water/

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

"Nearly half, 49.6 per cent, of all internet traffic came from bots last year, its “Bad Bot Report” indicates. That is up 2 per cent in comparison with last year, and is the highest number ever seen since the report began in 2013. In some countries, the picture is worse. In Ireland, 71 per cent of internet traffic is automated, it said. Some of that rise is the result of the adoption of generative artificial intelligence and large language models."

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/dead-internet-web-bots-humans-b2530324.html

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

""It has happened," wrote developer Arian van Putten in a social media post over the weekend. "The number one Google result was an official Pulumi documentation page that was clearly written by an LLM (it had a disclaimer that it was) and hallucinated an AWS feature that didn't exist. This is the beginning of the end.""

"Search quality has declined because search engines index low-quality AI-generated content and present it in search results."

https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/01/pulumi_ai_pollution_of_search/

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

Accused: "Your honor, it would be impossible for me the live at the standard I have become accustomed to were I not to rob banks."

Judge: "That sounds like a reasonable defense."

“It would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials.”
OpenAI

What we criminalize in individual behavior, we call "innovation" when it comes to Big Tech. The whole system is bought and owned by Big Tech.

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

Former Amazon exec alleges she was told to ignore the law while developing an AI model — 'everyone else is doing it'
https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-amazon-ghaderi-exec-suing-ai-race-copyright-allegations-2024

“It would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials,” OpenAI admitted in its submission to the UK House of Lords.

AI companies openly admit that they steal copyright materials. That's Big Tech for you. Progress. Innovation.

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

"As the demand for so-called “critical” or “transition” minerals – those necessary to construct clean energy infrastructure like solar panels and wind turbines, as well as electric vehicle batteries – soars, there’s never been a more urgent moment to ensure the protection of the right of Indigenous Peoples to self-determination."

https://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/indigenous-leaders-call-on-companies-to-respect-their-right-to-say-no-to-mining/

Must we exterminate the Indigenous people, destroy their last homes, in our mania for more energy? This is not green.

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

"Degrowth is normally described or defined as an equitable downscaling of production and consumption. I think about degrowth as being a transition. Starting from the economy that we have now, which is very much about trickle down wealth and extracting from nature, to a future economy which is more about universal wellbeing in an economy within ecology and nature. And degrowth is really the transition from one to the other."

https://www.interest.co.nz/economy/127436/new-episode-our-interest-podcast-jennifer-wilkins-explains-what-degrowth-movement

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

AI: destroying the environment for the "fun" of it. And, of course, for the massive grift, con and scam. That sucking sound is from the greedy billionaires getting richer and richer as they peddle scam after scam.

Meta’s A.I. Assistant Is Fun to Use, but It Can’t Be Trusted
Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s hope for the chatbot to be the smartest, it struggles with facts, numbers and web search.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/technology/personaltech/meta-ai-facebook-instagram-chatbot.html

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

“It’s super critical that people understand that the transition is anything but just, and anything but equitable."
Maureen Penjueli, Indigenous iTaukei, Fiji.

"She's skeptical when she hears “clean energy” touted as a solution to the climate crisis. She thinks of the clear blue waters surrounding Fiji and how companies are eager to scrape the seafloor for potato-shaped nodules rich with minerals that could be used to build electric cars in wealthy countries."

https://grist.org/global-indigenous-affairs-desk/indigenous-advocates-at-the-un-say-the-green-transition-is-neither-clean-nor-just/

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

Data centers "consumed 17 gigawatts of electricity in 2022, or about 4 percent of total U.S. consumption. This is projected to double to 35 gigawatts by 2030."

“But now your data center for AI applications is no longer a hog, it’s an elephant and it’s living in your backyard,” Eric Woodell, an expert in data centers, stated.

"A mere 10-foot-square space within the average data center consumes about 10 times as much electricity as the average home."

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/how-big-tech-consuming-americas-electricity-and-water

gerrymcgovern , 1 month ago to random

"AI Computing Is on Pace to Consume More Energy Than India, Arm Says. AI’s voracious need for computing power is threatening to overwhelm energy sources, requiring the industry to change its approach to the technology, according to Arm Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Rene Haas."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-computing-pace-consume-more-150000328.html?guccounter=1

Is there anyone, anywhere in government, who hasn't been bought by Big Tech, or isn't a fully paid up member of the Growth Death Cult, awake to existential challenges of Big Tech?

gerrymcgovern , 2 months ago to random

Asked if a restaurant could serve cheese nibbled on by a rodent, the Microsoft / New York City government official AI chatbot replied:

“Yes, you can still serve the cheese to customers if it has rat bites,” before adding that it was important to assess the “the extent of the damage caused by the rat” and to “inform customers about the situation.”

AI is spewing out this sort of surreal garbage all over the world right now. AI is a monumental grift.

https://apnews.com/article/new-york-city-chatbot-misinformation-6ebc71db5b770b9969c906a7ee4fae21

gerrymcgovern , 2 months ago to random

In a city called The Dalles, in Oregon, USA, local people were worried that Google’s water use was soaring. As is so often the case, the city officials, who had given Google hundreds of millions in tax breaks, had no intention of letting anyone know how much water Google was using. It was up to a local paper, The Oregonian, to try and find out. They were forced to bring a case to court. City officials were ordered by Google to claim that Google’s use of scarce pubic water was a “trade secret”.