> "Emissions caused by chatgpt use are not significant in comparison to everything else."
Emissions directly caused by Average Joe using ChatGPT is not significant compared to everything else. 50,000 questions is a lot for an individual using ChatGPT casually, but nothing for the businesses using ChatGPT to crunch data. 50,000 "questions" will be lucky to get you through the hour.
Those businesses aren't crunching data just for the sake of it. They are doing so ultimately because that very same aforementioned Average Joe is going to buy something that was produced out of that data crunching. It is the indirect use that raises the "ChatGPT is bad for the environment" alarm. At very least, we at least don't have a good handle on what the actual scale is. How many indirect "questions" am I asking ChatGPT daily?
> I don’t understand this perspective. It should be abundantly clear at this point that these systems are quite useful for a variety of applications.
LLM are polyvalent. But in most of the tasks they are not the most efficient way to do the task.
Want to play chess ? Use Stockfish or Leela.
Want to do image recognition ? SAM or TinyViT like models.
Want to know if your are sick ? Go to the doctor or at least do a search on the web.
Yes, there is tasks where LLM are perfect for (speech analysis/classification for example). But omnipotent chatbot isn't one for example.
> If there were a revolutionary use, we would have a productivity boom. We don't.
What evidence do you have for this assertion? It seems like you are asserting something as fact when in reality it's your own personal opinion, yet ironically you are dismissing everyone else's personal experiences as mere opinion too.
No predicted productivity boom (check last US data), no GDP boost yet (again last data).
Even LLM enthusiast like McKinsey or Goldmansachs expect nothing before 2027.
And it's not about LLM, it's about the whole AI progress.
That is, obviously, a revolution.
But just to be clear.
I'm denying something said to be obvious. I should not be the one who give sources about something that doesn't exist. If there is a productivity boom, I may not have seen it. Show it to me.
> It's the global technology that is yet to prove to be useful
Useful for whom, by what definition? I personally find it very useful for my day to day work, whether it be helping me write code, think through ideas, or otherwise.
> I don't think that your personal experience is of any interest
But you didn't specify what you meant by "useful," hence why I asked the question I did. So under such ambiguity, my assertion is absolutely a counterpoint to what you just said. I will ask again, useful for whom, by what definition?
Oh! Good point, we may not have the same definition of usefulness.
By useful I mean, to the world. That it affect the world in a good way.
Maybe it's not the best technology to do something but replace the best way in an CO2 effective way. Maybe it is not a clean technology but increase overall fairness.
I don't know, but it had to have a good income to the world in a way.
The article needs to exist because the idea that ChatGPT usage is environmentally disastrous really has started to make its way into the human hive mind.
I'm glad someone is trying to push back against that - I see it every day.
A more appropriate title is "Emissions caused by chatgpt use are not significant in comparison to everything else."
But, given that title, it becomes somewhat obvious that the article itself doesn't need to exist.