This is a specific (and probably the most well-known) case, but for details about how the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index is calculated, you can hit https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption and look under the header "Energy consumption model and key assumptions". There is a summary and a link to a paper detailing their methods. Skepticism about science reporting is super important! And I'm certainly willing to have my mind changed, but it looks like there's a lot of substance to these claims.
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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Thanks for sharing this, just the kind of thing I was thinking about.
Are you aware of anything related to AI energy usage?
This is a paper about it by the same guy: https://archive.is/AQhiC#selection-3573.66-3573.67. I found it while reading an NYT article about AI consumption.
After posting this I just read this Ars Technica article where the headline says crypto uses over 2% of U.S. electric generation, but then if you click through to the source, it says a preliminary estimate is between .6% and 2.3%.
And this is why scientists tend to dislike science journalism. Whether intentional or not, it misses out the nuance that scientific findings usually require. And then those misrepresented facts start getting quoted elsewhere until you get a web of "sources" that just point in a circle and can eventually cut out the actual source that includes the nuance.
Always be skeptical of journalism headlines and check the body. Then be skeptical of that and check the source. Then still remain skeptical of that because one study doesn't determine scientific consensus. Before long you'll be in the rabbit hole of the replication crisis.
But don't write off science. It's flawed because humans are flawed, but it's still our best tool for determining truth.
There is an interesting article here https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200131-why-and-how-does-future-planet-count-carbon . It does not directly address your question though. Some BBC articles estimate their energy usage, their methodology is in the link.
That was pretty interesting, thank you!
I will say these headlines are slightly misleading because you can have nations as small as the Vatican or they could be referring to small nations like Romania and the sort. And that is vastly different energy usage between the two
For me, the energy consumption estimates are meaningless without a comparison to alternatives. For example, the headline "2% of electricity is used for crypto" is meaningless without an honest comparison against alternatives, like energy cost of gold mining, banking institutions, and financial transaction networks.
After all, a single Google search has an ecological footprint.
I think a lot of headlines are not exactly honest or at least diligent with that side of the story.
Crypto is an alternative to none of those things. Its a ponzy scheme with extra steps.
With prejudice.
But with AI while it still has problematic aspects, it also has a lot of useful applications.
Ah yes, stealing content en masse and polluting the whole internet with junk content in the hopes of being able to monopolize entire industries. Peak usefulness.
(There are of course many useful applications of AI in general. But they also tend to not burn through as much energy and processing power as LLMs)
I use an LLM pretty much every day to assist with software development. I find it to be very useful.
That's good for you, however, content generation from these models has still polluted the internet and using Google's Image search is impossible.
That's 100% on Google.
They abandoned their search tool like 5 years ago.
Yeah, yeah, that's what they said about the steam engine, and... Oh, it did exactly what you said. Nevermind.