When talking about the energy consumed by LLMs don't be fooled by arguments focusing solely on the direct power consumption of these models, because they are externalizing a lot of it. Browsers are now doing proof-of-work calculations to access many websites, because websites need to protect themselves from AI scrapers. That takes power! Let that sink in: every computer, tablet or phone on earth is now consuming more power *every time it accesses a webpage* because of "AI".
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@gabrielesvelto Hello 👋 how are you doing?, How would you describe your writing style?
@gabrielesvelto This is such a critical point. The indirect energy costs of AI are staggering. It's one reason I believe in local-first AI processing — tools that run in your browser use YOUR device's power, not burning datacenter energy for every keystroke. The cloud-everything model is unsustainable.
@gabrielesvelto Even earlier than that, there are the energy and resources consumed to build the chips and servers those LLMs run on.
@gabrielesvelto Good point. The pursuit of surveillance at ALL costs (and our expense!)
@gabrielesvelto scrapers are not merely a consequence of AI.