“Asking an AI chatbot a question consumes a great deal more energy than finding the answer via simple web search or calculator. It adds extra demand for no good reason... a bit like driving to the shops in an SUV instead of riding your bike.”
Or driving any kind of car. AI, like cars, aims to reconfigure everyday life in a way that’s vastly more energy-hungry and polluting… and profitable for a few.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/13/ai-datacentres-environmental-impacts
@scott
So, in consequence, each question to an ai must must generate a multitude of what ad revenue of Google does with one search. Right?
And as long as this is not the case, it means that it's highly subsidized. And I wonder how this develops as soon as companies aren't willing - or capable - anymore to subsidize this kind of service.
According to Sam Altman, the goal of AI is to put all human knowledge on a meter, where stolen data is held hostage and a ransom is paid by users to access it.
https://gizmodo.com/sam-altman-says-intelligence-will-be-a-utility-and-hes-just-the-man-to-collect-the-bills-2000732953
https://fortune.com/2026/03/12/sam-altman-ai-labor-capital-jobs-nobody-knows/
Of course, the fossil fuel industry & its vassals has done a superb job at book bans, attacking education, and lowering literacy rates, so Altman's vision of chokepoint capitalism & AI may come true.
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https://gizmodo.com/whats-cooler-than-building-a-literal-god-building-the-new-uber-2000684458
https://jacobin.com/2018/06/public-education-privatization-koch-brothers-teachers
https://www.desmog.com/2025/12/11/the-koch-network-is-pushing-trump-to-accelerate-ai-documents-show/
Building a society based on illiterate peasants and only the rich can afford access to good quality information....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/16/koch-network-says-it-wants-remake-public-education-that-means-destroying-it-says-author-new-book-billionaire-brothers/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/24/us-conservatives-campaign-books-ban-schools
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https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/08/social-media-child-safety-internet-ai-surveillance.html
Meta, Google, Oracle, Amazon, Microsoft, Palantir, Apple all jumped on the AI bandwagon after #PrinceBonesaw and Kushner got cozy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/13/trump-tech-execs-riyadh/
https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-crown-prince-visits-apple-google-2018-4
Does he hear himself speak? "...to borrow an old phrase from the energy industry that didn’t quite work: ‘Too cheap to meter.'”
Gee, I wonder WHY it "didn't quite work," why no one gave away energy for free? Perhaps because it was more profitable NOT to? 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Same thing now - why give away the intelligence when you can make money from it? Note: they are NOT making money, just burning it.
@scott "Green by design: How solar energy is shaping the future of data centers"
You object?
It's real, not what you think.
Use our brains to do the right thing not be idiots as we have been.
"Farm in the Netherlands uses Bitcoin mining to keep stable temperatures inside the greenhouse"
"while being powered by solar panels on the roof"
Why is bitcoin mining any dif than AI?
scott f
Guillotine Jones, Flâneur
Franz Graf
Nicole Parsons
Ehay2k
Scale Theory
Graham Bingham
Knightmare
Wulfy—Speaker to the machines
nieuemma