Cat HicksFrom a behavioral and psychological perspective (not interested in this thread in an "arguing about whether our estimation is right" perspective lol), I think the halting, difficult, but clearly emerging work of starting to reckon with the climate costs of computing is so incredibly cool and important. Some questions I want research to ask about this include:
How does the relationship a developer has with the computing resources around them change when climate and ecology are brought into the picture? Does this produce unexpected other changes, for instance, I speculate without evidence that it might reframe your interactions with technology to be less abstract. Despite the massive crisis of climate concerns, is there a protective effect from this? Might this make some technology work feel less alienated from the world?
Do folks in software overall tend to show a "bigger is better" bias or mental model? That's a big question, but assuming this does exist, given that climate conscious computing might emphasize more targeted use of resources, would introducing climate conscious computing shift that bias? Might you begin to value smaller and more targeted solutions? Would this have a spillover effect to other areas of work that don't even have the same sustainability concern?
tdietterich@grimalkina Efficiency of code is one of the central values of computing. It is particularly pressing for LLMs, obviously. But for years we have been encouraging people to write clear, understandable, code even if it is less efficient, with the goal of reducing maintenance costs. Will the shift to climate-conscious engineering change this tradeoff point?
@tdietterich a fantastic framing for some research questions...! You might even think about studying "what developers think efficiency means" in light of x, y, and z concerns to start to get at this. Which concern gets foregrounded will probably change a lot!
@tdietterich love the values framing too.