3 Mile Island may reopen to fuel Microsoft AI

[pixy0stix]

gift link - wapo.st/4dcxnbx

[pixy0stix]

What sort of dystopian hellscape are we living in?

[livinitup]

That’s not creepy as f*ck at all !

[aurora]

I saw this last night and immediately started to rethink the ethics of my entire profession. Where does it end?

(I don't think I'm actually ready for the answer to that.)

[mrsslocombe]

Ooooh god. My parents live in the outer edges of the zone. Fantastic.

Also there's a weird segment of tech bro/"environmentalist" Twitter that is pushing for a return to "greener" ways of living with community kitchens, washing clothes by hand, etc. Meanwhile the energy necessary for AI is going to kill off the ice bergs on its own.

MEN!

[noodleoo]

Why am I immediately picturing the hellscape future from Terminator?

I don’t understand AI and I don’t want it.

[fortnightlily]

Just to temper the sensationalism, the plant had already been reoperationalized after the accident. It was shutdown again in 2019 because of the expense, not safety concerns.

[pixy0stix]

Sept 20, 2024 11:54:51 GMT -5 fortnightlily said:

Just to temper the sensationalism, the plant had already been reoperationalized after the accident. It was shutdown again in 2019 because of the expense, not safety concerns.

I'm not worried about the safety. I'm worried that a single company is leasing the entire power generation of a nuclear plant. For AI. That is insane!

[wawa]

Sept 20, 2024 12:09:56 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Sept 20, 2024 11:54:51 GMT -5 fortnightlily said:

Just to temper the sensationalism, the plant had already been reoperationalized after the accident. It was shutdown again in 2019 because of the expense, not safety concerns.

I'm not worried about the safety. I'm worried that a single company is leasing the entire power generation of a nuclear plant. For AI. That is insane!

We are all just blissfully ignoring the real world impact of AI and big data and the rest of modern computing.  And I very much mean we all.  Me too.  It's part of what makes me laugh in a very sour and cranky ass way that I do when people try to tell me that self driving electric cars are going to somehow solve the environmental impacts of gas engines.  We have no solution in place right now for how energy hungry we are and will continue to be.

It feels inescapable. Even in a sector of my industry where we talk very very earnestly about getting people to drive less to save the planet....we also have all kinds of fascinating conversations about cool shit you can do with AI without ever touching on the impact that it actually has.  ESPECIALLY now that it's just...there.  for everybody. Tools that suck power like it's literally limitless and people are using it to fine tune their fucking facebook posts about their sister's dog taking a shit on their lawn.  It's up there with crypto in just burning energy nearly for the sake of burning energy.

I thought this was an interesting piece: www.vox.com/climate/2024/3/28/24111721/climate-ai-tech-energy-demand-rising

But like so many other things the user doesn't get the bill and there's not transparency on how much it actually costs, so nobody feels any urgency to limit their use.  

[wawa]

I mean, to be clear, it's still a tiny fraction of our overall energy use, but it's a growing fraction and it's not one that people are talking about much with any intention of curbing it.

[pixy0stix]

Thanks wawa, I was reminded of this article that I had bookmarked to read from WaPo (gift link) - wapo.st/3MPjkOt

A bottle of water to write a fucking email.

[aurora]

Sept 20, 2024 13:39:09 GMT -5 wawa said:

I mean, to be clear, it's still a tiny fraction of our overall energy use, but it's a growing fraction and it's not one that people are talking about much with any intention of curbing it.

An extremely rapidly growing fraction!

I don't think most people have much awareness, either

[jlt19]

Sept 20, 2024 14:25:04 GMT -5 aurora said:

Sept 20, 2024 13:39:09 GMT -5 wawa said:

I mean, to be clear, it's still a tiny fraction of our overall energy use, but it's a growing fraction and it's not one that people are talking about much with any intention of curbing it.

An extremely rapidly growing fraction!

I don't think most people have much awareness, either

This is most likely the case. I had zero idea that crypto mining took the resources it does until here. And I had zero idea that using AI uses any more energy than simply searching for something. I haven’t read anything yet, so I still don’t grasp it, but will now that it’s been mentioned here.

From a business perspective, my company likes to say how much they’re trying to be more environmentally friendly but yet encourages us to use AI to find ways to improve the efficiency of our jobs. Not to mention we just created an entire new arm of the business dedicated to AI.

It’s all very disingenuous.

[SusanBAnthony]

Maybe my fam is wierd but we talk about crypto/AI energy usage and are also pretty pro nuclear energy....

Everything is terrible, humans are awful, we are all fucked. Happy Friday!