I would be fine if data centers paid the full cost of their existence, but that isn't what happens in our world.
Instead the cost of pollution is externalised and placed on the backs of humanity's children. That includes the pollution created by those datacentres running off fossil fuel generators because it was cheaper to use gas in the short term than to invest in solar capacity and storage that pays back over the long term. The pollution from building semiconductors in servers and GPUs that will likely have less than a 10 year lifespan in an AI data center as newer generations have lower operating cost. The cost of water being used for evaporative cooling being pulled from aquifers at a rate that is unsustainable because it's cheaper than deploying more expensive heat pumps in a desert climate.... and the pollution of the information on the internet from AI slop.
The short term gains from AI have a real world cost that most of us in the tech industry are isolated from. It is far from clear how to make this sustainable. The sums of money being thrown at AI will change the world forever.
Given that data centers use less energy than the alternative human labor they replace, they actually improve pollution. Replacing those GPUs with more efficient models also improves pollution because those replacements use less electricity for the same workload than the units they replaced.
This is such a wild take. You're 100% correct that AI-generated art consumes less resources that humans making art and having to, you know, eat food and stuff.
Obviously, the optimal solution is to eliminate all humans and have data centers do everything.
Instead the cost of pollution is externalised and placed on the backs of humanity's children. That includes the pollution created by those datacentres running off fossil fuel generators because it was cheaper to use gas in the short term than to invest in solar capacity and storage that pays back over the long term. The pollution from building semiconductors in servers and GPUs that will likely have less than a 10 year lifespan in an AI data center as newer generations have lower operating cost. The cost of water being used for evaporative cooling being pulled from aquifers at a rate that is unsustainable because it's cheaper than deploying more expensive heat pumps in a desert climate.... and the pollution of the information on the internet from AI slop.
The short term gains from AI have a real world cost that most of us in the tech industry are isolated from. It is far from clear how to make this sustainable. The sums of money being thrown at AI will change the world forever.