Mastodawn

The discourse on whether "AI" "works" or not misses the point. It frames utility in a very narrow, micro-economic way whereas the actual issues are macro-economic.
Climate change and reliance on fossil fuel are already hurting the global economy. The "AI" hype reinforces the need to keep fossil fuels. In addition, it causes a whole range of other macro-economic harms (see my earlier post https://scholar.social/@wim_v12e/116359082277792450). In that context, whether it "works" or not is irrelevant.

#NoToAI #FrugalComputing

Wim🧮 (@[email protected])

You know that I am mostly concerned with the way the "AI" hype is making global warming worse. Most people are likely more concerned about economic harms, such as: - "AI" is depressing wages and income because employers or customers can now claim your skills are worth less, and that you should be more productive [1,2] - "AI" is causing unemployment, not because it is replacing workers but because companies fund their investment in "AI" by reducing their workforce. [3] (1/3) #AI #NoToAI

Scholar Social

Wim🧮2d ago

"Amazon would rather shareholders did not look too closely at carbon footprint"

"With its Climate Pledge, Amazon committed to "net-zero carbon emissions by 2040" and match 100 percent of its electricity use with renewable energy by 2030"

(not including Scope 3 emissions of course, and this "100%" on a grid that is not decarbonised means purely offloading of the emissions to someone else, rather than actually decarbonising.)

https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/10/amazon_climate_goals/

#FrugalComputing

Amazon would rather shareholders did not look too closely at carbon footprint

: Investors urged to reject proposal for more disclosure on whether AWS expansion risks climate goals

The Register

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bsmall2 Mar 31

🧵
The machine seems conflicted.. It has the HP logo but is a compaq model... With AI (LLM SALAMI) and the attacks on Iran driving up CPU and various component costs, refurbishing old machines and Frugal Computing in general will become more attractive (better know!?!?) for more people...
> prices for electronics are already up 200% to 500%. And they’ll go higher. Memory is near unfindable, and now CPU chips are getting rare.
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/03/27/the-ai-bubble-and-the-global-polycrisis/
#OldPCs #FrugalComputing

The AI bubble and the global polycrisis

The AI bubble is a symptom of our wider economic problems. It’s the last thing masking the bigger systemic issues — so they don’t show up in the macro numbers. Just on the ground. But the US bombed…

Pivot to AI

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Wim🧮Mar 24

To answer my own question, it is somewhere between 25 kW and 60 kW.
For comparison, the NVIDIA DGX-A100 consumes 6.5kW.

Moreover, this requires Helium-3 which is only 20 ppm in natural Helium (most is Helium-4). I have not yet found the amount of energy required per liter of Helium-3, my guess is that it will be very large.

#FrugalComputing #QuantumComputing

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J$Mar 20

@macrumors TL;DR One is vastly overdimensioned for its workload. The other, also. #frugalcomputing

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Kevin Karhan

Mar 16

@requiem np.

It's basically a minimalist #toybox#musl / #linux distro designed on being brutally simple, reproduceable, auditable and efficient.

Mostly for #FrugalComputing and targeting systems that current mainstream #distros don't serve.
- Basically trying to be the "bare minimum I could use to work from as a sysadmin"...

Moses Izumi Mar 16

PROTIP: Instead of telling people to ditch their Alexa or Google Nest in the name of #privacy, convince them that voice commands* are inefficient trash compared of devices with remotes.

* might be useful if you're physically disabled or have extreme RSI, but it shouldn't be an excuse to sell your soul to Amazon et. al.
(mostly venting about my dad and his devotion to a fundamentally dodgy design, to be honest)

#degoogle
#permacomputing
#frugalcomputing

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Kevin Karhan

Mar 16

@lispi314 precisely that!