Notes / Society & public life
Putting AI’s resource use in proportion.
Translated by AI from Swedish. Read the original alongside it whenever you like.
We need to be able to hold two thoughts in our heads at once: • AI creates enormous value. • AI uses energy, water and other resources.
The problem is that the debate often lacks proportion. Either every prompt is portrayed as a climate catastrophe, or the issue is dismissed entirely. I think you’ve noticed that I struggle with individual AI-shaming. Before an assignment, I therefore started experimenting with ways to visualise AI’s resource use more clearly, inspired by the latest figures and similar visualisations.
This really is a first version. Please tell me what you think. I’m particularly curious about what’s missing, what’s misleading and which comparisons would make the numbers more useful. And how does it actually feel when you see this?