Post #217643
2026-02-02 09:04 UTC
> By 2028, "AI alone could consume as much electricity annually as 22% of all US households."
That would mean the fraction of your energy footprint going to AI would be larger (or at least comparable) to the fraction going to AC or heating.
A lot of times, arguments about energy uses of $thing focus on the micro scale: "this prompt used x Wh, equivalent to running a light bulb y minutes".
I find these macro-numbers far more useful. Because they are harder to distort.
https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/selfish-ai
Replies (1)
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@Merovius@chaos.social 2026-02-02 09:08
This isn't specific to AI, it applies to other things as well. "This steak", "this plastic bag", "this drive"… But tech people should know, that small numbers become large at scale, and vice-versa. Saying "this prompt used…" is like saying "we serve millions of requests a month" (so single-digits per second, at best) in reverse - just trying to make the number look small, instead of large.