this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
217 points (97.4% liked)

Technology

77899 readers
3162 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
L4s@hackingne.ws
217
AI boom has caused same CO2 emissions in 2025 as New York City, report claims (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 days ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
27 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(25)00278-8

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org -2 points 3 days ago (21 children)

The figures show the estimated greenhouse gas emissions from AI use are also now equivalent to more than 8% of global aviation emissions. His study used technology companies’ own reporting and he called for stricter requirements for them to be more transparent about their climate impact. “The environmental cost of this is pretty huge in absolute terms,” he said. “At the moment society is paying for these costs, not the tech companies. The question is: is that fair? If they are reaping the benefits of this technology, why should they not be paying some of the costs?”

So that's actually not that much? After everybody was screaming that AI is boiling the world, 8% of global aviation emissions is kind of low. And you might hate AI, but it is really more useful than Katie from Sales getting skin cancer on a beach in Thailand or that dude getting drunk on Mallorca or whatever those billionaires are doing in their private jets

[–] dgriffith@aussie.zone 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

it is really more useful than Katie from Sales getting skin cancer on a beach in Thailand or that...

A large chunk of air transport is also freight. And business. And regular domestic travel for people going from A to B, travel that doesn't include holidays for Kate or that drunk dude in Mallorca.

And when you look at those uses, AI is still running a pretty distant second place.

[–] riskable@programming.dev -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

8% of total global aviation emissions doesn't put it in second place. It's not even in the top 100. I don't think it ever will be... Because building huge data centers takes years and by the time there's enough data centers to make a huge dent, the previous AI data centers will have been used to make fusion power a reality.

Today's fusion reactor designs were all made thanks to AI. The kind running in big data centers.

It takes a lot of computing power to simulate fusion reactor designs!

[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You mean the experimental reactors? Your comment implies that there are currently big data centers running fusion reactors to power them and that is just false.

[–] riskable@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

I meant that the current reactor designs were made using AI running in big data centers with supercomputers/GPUs.

load more comments (19 replies)