It’s also far from clear that the tech industry will prove to be as hungry for fossil fuel power as some predict. First, advances in AI technology could drive energy consumption down. Concerns are emerging that the technology may not fully live up to the hype, at least from investors’ standpoints, with Alibaba Group chairman Joe Tsai telling a Hong Kong investment summit in March that data construction may have already reached “the beginning of some kind of bubble.” Plus, the Trump tariffs have injected extraordinary levels of uncertainty into global markets, leaving some experts wondering if the upheaval could derail an AI boom.
taladar@sh.itjust.works
on 22 Apr 21:11
nextcollapse
leaving some experts wondering if the upheaval could derail an AI boom.
AI hype could certainly be derailed if you need to start an independent baseless hype in dozens of separate countries instead of just having the hype as a cultural export of the US.
The rest of the world has been trying to move away from fossil fuels for decades. Why these guys didn’t figure out they should diversify beyond oil I do not understand.
Most of the big ones have. Oil is still where most of their money comes from, but they often have various wind and solar divisions as well.
frezik@midwest.social
on 23 Apr 13:43
nextcollapse
Large corporations are allergic to capital expenditures. That is, they don’t like investing in new things to make the business run. They want their previous investment to run as long as possible. On occasion, the workers will arrange big projects to be covered as “maintenance” rather than capital expenditures.
Oil companies have invested in oil pumps and refineries. They could invest in all sorts of other things, but that’s less money in the hands of shareholders. That’s all there is to it. Money spent on new investments isn’t making them richer right now.
The house of Saud has a lot of money in renewables already for example. But they make even more money if we buy all their oil first, so that’s what they want us to do.
Aside from the obvious questions everyone else is posting …. How is this even relevant? Saudi Arabia mainly exports oil, but US uses almost no oil products for generating electricity. Unless data centers start installing their own generators (please no) for full time power, it’s a non-starter. What electrical utility does s going to build an oil burning generator plant?
History we’ve used a lot of coal and natural gas, so that’s the most likely fossil fuels to increase. And those are fuels the US has tons of
Reverendender@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Apr 03:08
nextcollapse
Who is going to actually pay for all this AI junk once all the investors decide it’s time to stop “disrupting the market and gaining share” and time to start charging people what it actually costs to run (plus margins)?
Like, I use ChatGPT and Copilot and shit because it’s free, but if it were $5/month I’d happily walk away.
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
on 23 Apr 12:45
nextcollapse
I hate how we let them re-name it distruption, we should go back calling it what it is. Using their vast wealth to comit blatant market manipulation using anti-competative practices.
VanillaFrosty@lemmy.world
on 23 Apr 16:43
collapse
My half thought conspiracy: The actual hope is to get people so reliant on AI that the fee is secondary.
Why are news outlets reporting on what some hallucinating AI says? To legitimize it. As people use it more they’ll become more reliant on it. It’ll be no different than, "just Google it "
But they aren’t only going to do this to make a profit. It’s more than that. It’s about controlling the flow of information. Once people are reliant on it they’ll adjust algorithms and black list information that doesn’t benefit them.
Legitimately AI is trying to position itself to control information and by extension the realities of its users. And that is priceless.
BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world
on 23 Apr 13:03
nextcollapse
It will be amazing if AI destroys humanity without ever becoming conscious. Everyone was envisioning Skynet, when in reality we’ll just cook the Earth with GHGs so that data center GPUs can hallucinate legal cases.
GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
on 23 Apr 16:20
nextcollapse
Death cult mentality. Holding the entire planet hostage for their own gain. These people deserve a penalty of a certain kind.
threaded - newest
That’s a good thing, is it?
Morgan Freeman: “It wasn’t.”
why would we want to keep fossil fuels alive?
No.
Or we could, you know, NOT do that. That’d be the better option.
The monster that is Infinite Growth can’t do that.
Excuse me, we do not use that “logic” thing here. Thanks.
Well, shit. But at least there’s this:
AI hype could certainly be derailed if you need to start an independent baseless hype in dozens of separate countries instead of just having the hype as a cultural export of the US.
It doesn’t even have to be a derailed boom, but simply
Dr. Evil holds a meeting with the sole goal of making everything worse.
The rest of the world has been trying to move away from fossil fuels for decades. Why these guys didn’t figure out they should diversify beyond oil I do not understand.
Most of the big ones have. Oil is still where most of their money comes from, but they often have various wind and solar divisions as well.
Large corporations are allergic to capital expenditures. That is, they don’t like investing in new things to make the business run. They want their previous investment to run as long as possible. On occasion, the workers will arrange big projects to be covered as “maintenance” rather than capital expenditures.
Oil companies have invested in oil pumps and refineries. They could invest in all sorts of other things, but that’s less money in the hands of shareholders. That’s all there is to it. Money spent on new investments isn’t making them richer right now.
The house of Saud has a lot of money in renewables already for example. But they make even more money if we buy all their oil first, so that’s what they want us to do.
Oh cool, I can’t think of any potential issues with oil companies prioritising AI over human customers
Aside from the obvious questions everyone else is posting …. How is this even relevant? Saudi Arabia mainly exports oil, but US uses almost no oil products for generating electricity. Unless data centers start installing their own generators (please no) for full time power, it’s a non-starter. What electrical utility does s going to build an oil burning generator plant?
History we’ve used a lot of coal and natural gas, so that’s the most likely fossil fuels to increase. And those are fuels the US has tons of
Dear lord, don’t give trump ideas
They have actually started doing that already. At least musk has.
Who is going to actually pay for all this AI junk once all the investors decide it’s time to stop “disrupting the market and gaining share” and time to start charging people what it actually costs to run (plus margins)?
Like, I use ChatGPT and Copilot and shit because it’s free, but if it were $5/month I’d happily walk away.
I hate how we let them re-name it distruption, we should go back calling it what it is. Using their vast wealth to comit blatant market manipulation using anti-competative practices.
My half thought conspiracy: The actual hope is to get people so reliant on AI that the fee is secondary.
You’re already starting to see this in news articles where, "Chat gpt says Trump’s physical not possible," or that “gork calls elon top misinformation spreader.”
Why are news outlets reporting on what some hallucinating AI says? To legitimize it. As people use it more they’ll become more reliant on it. It’ll be no different than, "just Google it "
But they aren’t only going to do this to make a profit. It’s more than that. It’s about controlling the flow of information. Once people are reliant on it they’ll adjust algorithms and black list information that doesn’t benefit them.
Legitimately AI is trying to position itself to control information and by extension the realities of its users. And that is priceless.
It will be amazing if AI destroys humanity without ever becoming conscious. Everyone was envisioning Skynet, when in reality we’ll just cook the Earth with GHGs so that data center GPUs can hallucinate legal cases.
Death cult mentality. Holding the entire planet hostage for their own gain. These people deserve a penalty of a certain kind.
We have to start luiginating a few thousand assholes or we won’t have a rock to live in in the near future
.