“… research has now found that the vast majority of data stored in the cloud is “dark data”, meaning it is used once then never visited again. That means that all the memes and jokes and films that we love to share with friends and family – from “All your base are belong to us”, through Ryan Gosling saying “Hey Girl”, to Tim Walz with a piglet – are out there somewhere, sitting in a datacentre, using up energy…”
I would love to see that number on a graph next to the energy consumption of training the next bullshit AI chatbot.
IMO, it’s just more / another form of blame shifting.
“Look at how energy-wasteful sharing memes is, but don’t look at the massive waste of power for all these useless chatbots” is just a rehashed “Shame on you for using a plastic straw”.
Let’s call a spade a spade: “blame shifting” isn’t precise enough. It’s victim shaming in the form of consumer blame packaged in a virtue signaling wrapper. Just like the entire recycling concept, DARE, etc al. Fuck all of this bullshit that tries to point fingers at us plebs. The only “Heroes Work Here” signs should be on top of guillotines.
Engaging in a shared culture is killing the planet please just wake up, go to work, and go to sleep
And the ad industry, considering half of all consumer internet traffic is ads.
I’m sure its small - “AI” is an unnecessary waste of resources when we can ill afford it. That said we have actual quantifiable targets (that are so tough because we’ve left it so late) for energy and emissions so it might still be the case that this also needs to change.
Sadly, ine of the things I hear quite a lot from people is the assumption that digital means it has no impact at all and they act accordingly to that assumption but when you add it up it is having a sizeable impact.