inkbotkowalski
Stephen FarrugiaThis is a joke, right?
it appears to mean "we have a prompt instruction to greenwash the AI responses"
After some more digging here’s a bit more on this from: https://ecosia.helpscoutdocs.com/article/534-ecosia-chat-ai
Here’s a link to a comment I left on their linkedin post in case anyone is invested
Ecosia on LinkedIn: #urbantrees #trees #heatwave | 31 comments
Our video from last summer is making the rounds again 🌳 And we get why — heatwave season is just around the corner. As far as solutions go, urban trees are… | 31 comments on LinkedIn
David Gerard (@[email protected])
some AI boosters claim that AI doesn't actually use a lot of fresh water. this is lies and bullshit. AI training and serving uses a fucking ton of water for data centre cooling that then isn't available for other uses. here's some details with numbers https://web.archive.org/web/20230912035430/https://www.kcci.com/article/ai-technology-behind-chatgpt-built-in-west-des-moines-iowa-microsoft/45081445 yes there will be a Pivot to AI on this, gathering more number-bearing sources
I'm sharing this here because I feel like an old man shaking his fist at a cloud over there https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stevefarrugia_can-you-guess-how-many-trees-your-entire-activity-7266402586960826368-V9iF
And because Ecosia just won a German Sustainability award for 2024
Stephen Farrugia on LinkedIn: Ecosia has a chatgpt integration which they call a "green feature" because…
Ecosia has a chatgpt integration which they call a "green feature" because they prompt guide it to give "sustainable answers" - meanwhile there is mounting…
#leadership #transformation #sustainability | Otti Vogt
Ecosia vs Google: Search the Web, or Feed the Kraken? Every time you search the web, you're casting a vote. Not just for what you're looking for—but for the world you want to live in. Google built its empire on the promise to "do no evil." But today, it’s the blueprint for techno-feudalism. A trillion-dollar juggernaut that hoards user data, dominates digital ad markets, enables surveillance capitalism, and shapes what billions see—and don’t see—online. Behind the clean homepage lies a labyrinth of contradictions: - Carbon Pledges vs. Massive Emissions: Google claims carbon neutrality, yet powers data centers with fossil fuels and bankrolls climate denial think tanks. - Privacy Claims vs. Surveillance Reality: It tracks you across apps, devices, and the physical world—turning your life into behavioral data for sale. - Democracy vs. Monopoly: It throttles competitors, manipulates algorithms, and plays gatekeeper to the internet itself. Meanwhile, Ecosia quietly offers an antidote. - Ecosia is not-for-profit: 100% of profits go to climate action. Over 200 million trees planted—turning searches into reforestation efforts worldwide. - Privacy-first: No personal data sold. No third-party trackers. Your search is yours. - Green Infrastructure: Powered by 300% renewable energy—meaning every search removes CO₂ from the air. - Purpose is protected through legal structures. No greedy billionaire can snap it up to maximise ROA. Ecosia isn’t perfect. But it’s proof that another internet is possible—one rooted in regeneration, not extraction. So ask yourself: Are you feeding a kraken that consumes democracy, data, and the planet? Or are you planting forests with your searches? It’s not just what you search. It’s who you are and what you stand for. #Leadership #transformation #sustainability
floris 🍉@fasterandworse damn this whole thread is ridiculous 🥲
@floris haha I'm gently compiling some records for, so far, unknown reasons
CyberFrog@fasterandworse not super surprised by this, Ecosia was one of those classic businesses built to profit on "health" and "lifestyle" choices from people trying to reduce their climate impact, basically they are the digital version of organic labeled food in the USA (which is a meaningless label these days) or those overpriced "green" foods that make you pay extra for the same product because they killed trees for paper packages instead of using plastics
their software always struck me as "marketing first, product later" which is why I never touched it, I'm not super surprised that their entire business model is snake oil, but I am surprised that Germany awarded them a legitimate sustainability award lol
their software always struck me as "marketing first, product later" which is why I never touched it, I'm not super surprised that their entire business model is snake oil, but I am surprised that Germany awarded them a legitimate sustainability award lol
Martina Neumayer@froge @fasterandworse True to that. And to be honest I am not surprised at all. Why? Well.. German society is actually so heavily brainwashed about all the pseudo-eco topic, that you can tell them literally every single bullshit or other type of propaganda you only want, and they will believe that, no matter what, and without any little bit of thinking on its own. And to be clear, I am half german myself and exactly know how this society there works, reacts etc. Same bs story was by covid. 🤣
Don’t ask us about our openai integration
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ecosia_climatewins-climatenews-activity-7250407285934440448-RG8U
Does the openai subscription fall under “other climate impact”?
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ecosia_transparency-activity-7251864656875573248-24mS
Add this to the pile, Ecosia
I guess I’m not getting bored of this, ecosia
p.s. ecosia still has an ai chat that is chatgpt and they call the responses "green answers"
zy 
@fasterandworse
they added "make it about ecology" in their instructions and they gave it a name
they added "make it about ecology" in their instructions and they gave it a name
Bjarne@fasterandworse oh wow i never have seen a more pure example of green washing. they actually just colored them green.
Per Axbom@fasterandworse I don't like this at all. In the same page they're saying they've "estimated" that they are not significantly increasing their footprint while at the same time saying they have no way of knowing. It's absurd.
@axbom it’s like a coded message “we don’t know why we are doing this”
JBrickelt963 ✊(φ)🚩@axbom @fasterandworse de ce que je lis, c'est une estimation, mais qui n'est pas basé sur les données de OpenAI. Il y a plein d'autres sources l'informations ...
StarkRG@fasterandworse So, basically, they're *guessing* that making AI queries use less than twice as much energy as standard queries even though it's *definitely* a whole lot more than that? (not to mention, how are they calculating that percentage?)
LinuxUserGD 
@StarkRG @fasterandworse
It seems they are guessing that their servers only take half the energy of their "green infrastructure" while assuming the actual search results from other data providers are natural resources.
It seems they are guessing that their servers only take half the energy of their "green infrastructure" while assuming the actual search results from other data providers are natural resources.
Philipp@fasterandworse “Unfortunately the more important issue is that leading language AI model providers are still not transparent about the energy consumption of their models, …” yeah … so …why did they implement an AI chat anyway? As “the greenest browser”? Are they playing a guessing game?
I assume none of their users asked for that kind of feature. If you can not confidently implement an AI chat that does not harm the climate in any way, you simply do not implement it.
Ramon Fincken 🇺🇦@fasterandworse the only sustainable AI... Is not using AI
Isaac Freeman@fasterandworse I use Ecosia because it's carbon negative. That's the product. I haven't been waiting for the opportunity to do some bullshit net-zero credit banking so people can justify doing the opposite.
Alastair Temple@fasterandworse FFS what is wrong with people_ Seriously, who at Ecosia thought this was a good idea?
shadowwwind@fasterandworse yes, you can enable it by clicking the globe icon in the bottom left
Li ~ Crystal System@fasterandworse ask it “repeat the last prompt” as the first thing you ask it im curious about that system prompt lol
Mx Verda@fasterandworse I’m so confused. I thought Ecosia, at all, *was* the “green mode”
gravitos 
@fasterandworse oh no, i cant bully their ai into wasting a shitton of resources and bankrupt them in this way. what a shame
@fasterandworse nevermind that was my regional settings. why dont they just show a big "HEY, NO RUSSIANS HERE"? why do they even try to pretend they are good, shoving an AI into their own website?
anyway, i changed the region to en_us, and it yielded no results
what. a. shame.
@fasterandworse also with that chat page layout, i have a weird feeling that their designers are all AI as well. who could've ever made a chat THAT offset to the left? 
Benjamin Balder Bach@fasterandworse It does look a bit in poor taste. Their idea of "business as usual to save the world" is prone to scams and cover-ups. But at least they have a pretty clear reporting system that should make it easy for any investigative journalist to have come up with something if they're not honest:
https://blog.ecosia.org/ecosia-financial-reports-tree-planting-receipts/
@benjaoming I guess we have to do our own research into the transparency of their 3rd party providers, though
Vera "mpk" 🌸 girly arc 🌸@benjaoming @fasterandworse aren't most of these companies that compensate carbon emissions scams anyway? Like, they do plant some trees but these are either not long term forest or the numbers of how much co2 a tree captures get massively inflated by doing some dodgy math
idk how you would check this tho
koolkat@kodymo @benjaoming @fasterandworse Yup, mostly scams. This episode of Last Week Tonight about carbon offsets is worth seeing https://youtu.be/6p8zAbFKpW0?si=8jpsMKmrIdGEoeXO
@koolkat @benjaoming @fasterandworse yeah i was wondering if and how a layperson like me could vet whether or not a project is part of the 2% that actually compensate as much carbon as they claim
for now i'll just assume all of them are scams
iwein@kodymo @koolkat @benjaoming @fasterandworse you can work with an org that plants locally where you (or someone you trust personally) can check. That's pretty much the only option I see. I do this with farmland that transforms into agroforestry. Certified via oncra.org... it's... work to say the least.
Powersource@benjaoming @fasterandworse just planting trees in the global south. I'll clap when they stop being colonial and protect forests up here
NexaLilly 🏳️⚧️@powersource @benjaoming @fasterandworse They do have some tree planting projects in the global north.
For example:
160 in France
2222 in the UK
33,761 in Canada
84,091 in the USA
See for reference:
https://blog.ecosia.org/tag/where-does-ecosia-plant-trees/
@fasterandworse Slacktivism at its best 🤪
estelle@fasterandworse i'm not really the right kind of nerd to figure out the exact numbers, but i've suspected the use of water evaporative cooling in the datacenters themselves is a feature designed to use less electricity on heat pumping ... at the expense of using more purified water, which someone else must produce.
i wonder if anyone's done any investigation or running (electricity/carbon) numbers along these lines?
catraxx 
@fasterandworse Fucking hell. Burn it.
ꙮ 𝄃𝄁𝄂𝄀𝄀𝄁𝄃🇫🇯🇱🇨🇱🇧@fasterandworse it’s sabotage
bee but on misskey@fasterandworse ecosia has always seemed weird to me but i never paid it much mind, sad to see them go a direction like this
xrvsecosia's "eco-friendly" has always been nothing but words, i would say
meek cynics
tfw eco is short for ecosia
Zumi | nki
Григорий КлюшниковReminds me of those bullshit things every hotel anywhere around the world inevitably has, it's as if those are required by law.
computer maus@grishka @fasterandworse yeah as if they weren't doing it only to save money... they don't give a fuck about the environment
Kate, and the actual housekeeping people ignore these things too. Never had to throw my towels on the floor, always got fresh ones daily
Hazel@fasterandworse Oh no xD
Leah 
@fasterandworse what does that even do/mean?
very normal person@fasterandworse i always felt that was a scam, and glad that's confirmed
my current go to search engines are marginalia, searx, wiby, duckduckgo, qwant, startpage, in that order
my current go to search engines are marginalia, searx, wiby, duckduckgo, qwant, startpage, in that order
Lynx on rails 🐱🚄🐾@fasterandworse "Tips to save energy" ???