alt Hacker NewsThese people are working on destroying the planet to make more money, they absolutely do not care. Our society isn't set up to punish them, but encourage such behavior to even more extremes (see datacenter build outs causing water shortages, electricity hikes, and cancer in poor communities; nearly every politician capitulating on such actions because they don't know better).
I wish people would get off the "AI is the worst thing for the environment" bandwagon. AI and data centers as a whole aren't even in the top 100 emitters of pollution and never will be.
If you want to complain about tech companies ruining the environment, look towards policies that force people to come into the office. Pointless commutes are far, far worse for the environment than all data centers combined.
Complaining about the environmental impact of AI is like plastic manufacturers putting recycling labels on plastic that is inherently not recycleable and making it seem like plastic pollution is every day people's fault for not recycling enough.
AI's impact on the environment is so tiny it's comparable to a rounding error when held up against the output of say, global shipping or air travel.
Why don't people get this upset at airport expansions? They're vastly worse.