this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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Privacy

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[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 month ago

Install Chrome, get Chrome, including the AI parts. If you don't like it, don't use Chrome.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You already shouldn't be using Chrome, and if this is what moves the needle, great.

At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane.

No.

Just flatly, no.

Local models spin your GPU like a video game. Unless you think Overwatch is a climate disaster, please learn to separate datacenter condemnation from people running their own computers a little harder.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'd say you should read the article a little more closely, but it's not written very well. But it brings up interesting things that have nothing to do with your local GPU usage. For example, it names an interesting point about simply delivering 4 gigabytes of data to that many people. If pushed out to ~15% of Chrome users without consent:

  • That'd be 500 million people
  • It would be 2 exabytes of data
  • 120 GWh of energy, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of about 36,000 average UK households
  • 30,000 tonnes CO2 emitted, roughly the annual emissions of 6,500 cars

And that's just for the initial data push. Models need ✨updates!✨

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

We must kill the environmental disaster that is Steam.

Youtube is history's greatest monster.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Installing a game you want is different than hundreds of millions of people having something they didn't ask for getting pushed on them.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Not in terms of power use.

[–] shrek_is_love@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Power use is not always bad. Power waste is. 4GB I'm not going to use is much worse than 6GB I will use.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago

The atmosphere doesn't care whether you found joy in how you've impacted it. Either downloading files is bad, actually, or it's not a big deal.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

What happened to separating personal use from condemning data centers for expending unnecessary and unwanted energy?

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Does consent change how much power a server uses?

[–] XLE@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Here, yes. Two exabytes of data transfer could have been one or zero.

I don't get the point you're trying to make here.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The point is that servers don't belch black smoke when they send you one file. This model is the size of a four-hour Youtube video. How many people watch how many hours of video, every single day? We only see this hand-wringing minutia over internet use when talking about neural networks, and it's getting weird.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Much weirder when people try to shift blame off corporations pushing stuff on people without their consent, and on people minding their own business.

Weren't you just telling me that data centers would use energy regardless anyway? I can't keep track of these talking points, except it seems like they're all pro AI.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago

The root comment opens with 'don't use Chrome.' This tangent is about specific overblown fixation on power use... for downloads.

I am telling you to apply your own criticism of bandwidth to anything else Google does. Four gigs to every desktop Chrome user is still a drop in the bucket compared to a streaming service. If the average Chrome user has watched two movies online, they've done just as much environmental damage. Which is to say: not much.