Passing the “sniff test”
I've been seeing a trend lately, and while I don't have all my thoughts nailed down on what is bothering me there is just... something that isn't sitting right.
The latest defense for LLMs that I've seen have all had a similar slant, which is setting off alarms. Too many disparate people are making what feels like the same argument. All of these new posts I am seeing are taking an environmental slant of defending LLMs.
The basic premise is
Sure LLMs and the hardware and infra needed to run them are killing the planet, but
- They really aren't killing it as much as being reported
- They are killing it less than other things, and if people aren't complaining about those then why are they so focused on LLMs
- You can make small changes as an individual to offset the energy cost and use an LLM guilt free "
This all just doesn't sit right with me.
Point 1 feels wrong because there is usually some very specific metric being used to downplay the environmental impact. kwH/search or something like that. It doesn't look at the effects of things like the effect of banks of diesel turbines on the people living around the plants for starters...
Point 2 is pure "whatabout-ism" that is meant to distract at best.
Point 3 has been a historic problem when it comes to environmental responsibility. Pushing all responsibility for saving the planet on to the individuals is a losing game. We have seen how that has been working[1].
While yes we all need to be making improvements to how we treat the planet, those making the largest negative impacts are the ones that should shoulder the largest responsibility to make the most change.
The other thing that gets to me is the "inevitability" idea - that LLMs are going to continue to grow so we need to just all start using them.
A - they don't have to be an inevitability. We could just not.
B - Why don't we figure out what the uses of this tool are that bring value into the world and focus there?
Are the Wonderbreads of images and text blocks really benefiting anyone?
It hasn't ↩︎
