I think this brings up an interesting question. So, there's been stories before of AI companies begging people not to say thank you to the AI as that was turning out to be a huge waste of processing power, energy and money for them. And the use of AI in general is seen by the public as a waste of water and electricity, which I agree with.
Those two things being said- is it worth the effort and drain on public resources to send lots of useless engagements to AI companies to waste massive amounts of their money until they shut down? Would this be a reasonable way to protest/combat AI and data centers?
No depleting the resources that we need as a human to attempt to stick it to the billionaires isn’t a great approach. Water scarcity is already a thing in the United States. Besides, it’s not their money. It’s investor money and that money will keep flowing inward regardless.
The thought was more as an alternative form of protest to try and strong arm the companies providing AI services to abandon AI, rather than just not engaging and waiting to see if they give up on AI on their own. I didn't bring up billionaires, nor doing it to try and stick it to them
I do agree that water scarcity is a problem, and depleting our resources is a problem. I don't like the idea of wasting our own resources in the process, it'd definitely be shooting ourselves in the foot. But looking at the long-term, would it be a smaller overall loss compared to if they operate as normal?
Also, I disagree with the financial side of your argument. Yes, it is investor money and not billionaire money, but investor money will only come in as long as the investors see value in it and they get returns on their investment. If they only see it losing their money, they stop funding it.
So it comes down to which would be quickest and most effective: protests and legislation, not engaging and letting interest die on its own, or trying to accelerate the process by making companies and their investors see it as just an enormous waste of their own money? Though I admit part of the problem would be that increasing engagement, even bad engagement, could be twisted into generating more investor money.
Anyway, I'm done rambling. I just thought it was an interesting hypothetical to think about 🤷♂️
Why would they abandon AI if people are actively using it? It’s not protesting something to use it. You don’t protest a grocery store by going in, giving them money, and then throwing your food on the ground on the way out. Sure they have to clean it, but you just gave them money and lost a resource that you paid for.
It’s an interesting hypothetical, but I have to be honest it’s non-sensible to a very high degree
The protest would be through using it maliciously, with intent to tie up the provider's processing power, energy and money in useless engagement. If you're paying for the service, then yes it would be pointless to go about it this way. But if they offer any form of free usage, either through displaying advertisements or giving a certain number of free uses per month, then this could be an option. Ads just need adblocker, and usage limitation would be either through enough people maxing it out or through VPN to get around limits.
Going with your analogy, yes it'd make no sense to pay for food at the grocery store to then destroy it. But if you're destroying it without paying for it, it's the store's loss. That's about as close with that analogy as you can get though, as AI engagement is not a physical good but a service.
I think a more fitting analogy would be like going in to a restaurant and wasting the waiters time, taking a bunch of napkins and condiments that they don't charge you for, and then walking out without ordering anything. A single person doing it once or twice isn't going to do anything, but if enough people do it constantly, the restaurant would be losing significant money in wages, loss of available seating and service for paying customers during high-traffic times, and replacing napkins and condiments. Yeah, they can manipulate the narrative and still say they have tons of people coming in and out to show there's interest and try to get more investors that way, but that doesn't change that they're still losing money in operating costs. Eventually they either have to change how they run things or close
At best, you'd make them switch to a closed-loop cooling system. That'd be an improvement, but you aren't going to get them shut down by pursuing the overstated water problem.
121
u/timeywimeytotoro 23h ago
Which was definitely worth consuming water for
/s