Here is another peer reviewed paper from 2024 that argues that cautious optimism should be used when calculating the environmental and societal impact of LLMs specically:
TLDR it seems to be more complicated than simply AI = Bad for the environment
Also I’d point out that your points 2 and 5 are kind of hypocritical. You accuse AI of ‘stealing’ jobs but then suggest someone could use a watermarked stock image without permission or a license, which is arguably a form of theft in and of itself, and could directly impact another artists job.
For the human writing process, we looked at humans’ total annual carbon footprints, and then took a subset of that annual footprint based on how much time they spent writing.
Which seems like a silly method of comparing emissions, given that the human doesn’t exist for the purpose of creating images. The carbon footprint of the human is still present whether or not they are generating art. For an AI, the emissions are an addition to global carbon footprint.
For the final point, a random social media post isn’t a profit seeing endeavor, which is why it isn’t expected to pay for any images it uses. The normal accepted practice is to just give credit to the source. The same is not true for news articles, which does care about there being a watermark and is expected to pay for image use. Unless of course people start accepting the normal use of ai images in which case disrupts a whole industry to provide worse art.
Which seems like a silly method of comparing emissions, given that the human doesn’t exist for the purpose of creating images. The carbon footprint of the human is still present whether or not they are generating art.
Whether it’s creating art with AI or via another means the human must be involved or else the art doesn’t get created. They are a intrinsic part of the process and so their footprint must be included.
For an AI, the emissions are an addition to global carbon footprint
For Digital art (I.e Photoshop etc) the computer use is in addition to global carbon footprint. In Photography the construction of a camera is in addition to global carbon footprint. The list goes on. Either we either include the carbon footprint of all the tool(s) involved in the creation of the piece or we don’t include any.
For the final point, a random social media post isn’t a profit seeing endeavor, which is why it isn’t expected to pay for any images it uses. The normal accepted practice is to just give credit to the source. The same is not true for news articles, which does care about there being a watermark and is expected to pay for image use. Unless of course people start accepting the normal use of ai images in which case disrupts a whole industry to provide worse art.
Whether it’s ‘accepted practice’ or not is irrelevant. Using a watermarked image for anything without permission or license is illegal and fails to reimburse the artist that created it, the very thing you accuse AI of doing.
Apparently I screwed up my post. When I posted the article here I tried adding a photo from the article, but it just replaced the entire URL despite the URL having a different field than the image. I can’t seem to edit the post to put a link back to the article without losing the image (which is currently cross-linked to another group by someone else).
Why? Did the AI steal a job from some worried looking lady?
It didn’t need to have a picture
Could’ve been a stock photo or other image and no one would’ve cared about a watermark
A waste of resources that harms the planet (the planet that you’re trying to garden on)
Adds nothing of value to the discussion
Normalizes the use of technology that does in fact steal jobs from people who would be better than the technology
Re. that 2023 MIT article
Here’s a peer reviewed article from 2024 that presents an interesting counterpoint:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54271-x
Here is another peer reviewed paper from 2024 that argues that cautious optimism should be used when calculating the environmental and societal impact of LLMs specically:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-76682-6
TLDR it seems to be more complicated than simply AI = Bad for the environment
Also I’d point out that your points 2 and 5 are kind of hypocritical. You accuse AI of ‘stealing’ jobs but then suggest someone could use a watermarked stock image without permission or a license, which is arguably a form of theft in and of itself, and could directly impact another artists job.
From the first article.
Which seems like a silly method of comparing emissions, given that the human doesn’t exist for the purpose of creating images. The carbon footprint of the human is still present whether or not they are generating art. For an AI, the emissions are an addition to global carbon footprint.
For the final point, a random social media post isn’t a profit seeing endeavor, which is why it isn’t expected to pay for any images it uses. The normal accepted practice is to just give credit to the source. The same is not true for news articles, which does care about there being a watermark and is expected to pay for image use. Unless of course people start accepting the normal use of ai images in which case disrupts a whole industry to provide worse art.
Whether it’s creating art with AI or via another means the human must be involved or else the art doesn’t get created. They are a intrinsic part of the process and so their footprint must be included.
For Digital art (I.e Photoshop etc) the computer use is in addition to global carbon footprint. In Photography the construction of a camera is in addition to global carbon footprint. The list goes on. Either we either include the carbon footprint of all the tool(s) involved in the creation of the piece or we don’t include any.
Whether it’s ‘accepted practice’ or not is irrelevant. Using a watermarked image for anything without permission or license is illegal and fails to reimburse the artist that created it, the very thing you accuse AI of doing.
Apparently I screwed up my post. When I posted the article here I tried adding a photo from the article, but it just replaced the entire URL despite the URL having a different field than the image. I can’t seem to edit the post to put a link back to the article without losing the image (which is currently cross-linked to another group by someone else).
It’s either link or image, not both. The UI does not make this clear. Just post the link.
Yes, actually.
You people are ridiculous.