this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026

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If AI says that to save them from climate change, humanity has to shutdown AI... (piefed.marud.fr)

submitted 1 month ago by marud@piefed.marud.fr to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

46 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Would companies do it ?

Or would they force it to avoid those kind of answers ?

top 46 comments

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[–] schwim@piefed.zip 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

No because that's not how corporations work. Also, AI isn't the cause of climate change, corporations are.

[+] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -30 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Corporations are not the cause of Climate change, purchasers of the products from corporations are.

[–] arctanthrope@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

almost all food comes packaged in plastic. is that my fault for buying food, or is it the fault of the corporations that started using that packaging? do I have a moral duty to starve to death if I think we should use less plastic? or is it more realistic that I continue to live and advocate that corporations change their packaging?

[–] schwim@piefed.zip 9 points 1 month ago

It isn't your fault for trying to exist, his argument is comically flawed. He is blaming the people trying to survive for all of the corruption perpetrated by those in power.

[+] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes it is. If people didn't buy things that are packaged in plastic, the companies won't sell things packaged in plastic.

Alternatives are available right now, they just either a) cost more or b) take more time, or c) you would have to do without

By making the choice to go with the cheaper/easier option, and by doing so are giving them permission to keep doing it.

"BUT MAH COST OF LIVING" this isn't a valid excuse for doing something you know is bad.

If the more environmentally friendly option was the cheapest, it would already be the default. You have to choose cheap or environmentally friendly, and accept the consequences of your choices.

[–] arctanthrope@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

ok I see, so only poor people deserve to die. excellent point, I hadn't considered that

[+] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Forcing companies to not use plastic packaging will not somehow make the same product available at the same price. They will raise prices because the alternative is going to cost them more or again.. they would already be doing it. Those people would then "die" anyways as the prices rise.

Your logic is shit.

People can definitely continue to stay alive with less polluting personal choices, but choose not to every single day., I rarely see broke vegetarians for example, despite a true vegetarian diet (meat replacement products are expensive and do not count) being significantly cheaper than a meat based one and MASSIVELY more environmentally friendly.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm not here to argue. I think you're conflating multiple things here. Vegetarianism is lower pollution yes, but it's still delivered via truck or ship, it's still usually plastic wrapped, etc. Pollution is systemically embedded in our entire society and economy, so blaming consumers is only blaming the smallest part of the problem.

If everyone in the world tomorrow stopped buying anything that was polluting... They'd probably starve to death. Our farms and logistics are simply not designed for this. It's all been "optimised" for the lowest cost to companies and consumers both. The only solution is to start at the top and work your way down.

Let's say you're a company that sells food. You care about the environment so you switch everything to green. Electric trucks and ships. No plastic packaging. Your operating costs triple, and you fall behind all your competitors. Most customers don't understand, don't care, or cannot afford your more expensive products, especially in this economy. You go out of business. The only way to make it work is to reshape everything so that pollution is no longer an integral part of everything. I don't know what that would look like though, I'm not that smart.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't think you understand the level of difference in pollution associated with eating meat compared to being a vegetarian. It's not like it only saves 10% or 20%, even accounting for transportation and the like it's closer to a 50% reduction.

Most customers don’t understand, don’t care, or cannot afford your more expensive products, especially in this economy.

This is why it's the fault of the customers and not the fault of the companies. That's my entire argument. The companies didn't make the alternative more expensive, reality makes the alternative more expensive. The fact that people choose to continue to shop on price is literally the core issue.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I feel like it's just part of our instincts as resource hoarders. People will go for the cheapest option because it feels right and safer.

For anything else to happen, we actually have to add some structure or incentives to prioritise things differently; otherwise it's like asking ants to swarm a carrot instead of a sugar cube. The simplest and bluntest example I can think of (in my sleep deprived state) is sin tax. This is where things like sugar and cigarettes are taxed heavily and therefore very expensive, so it directs people to healthier choices. There's probably better options but I don't know much about this area.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

We can't put that on companies though. We live in a democracy, if people choose not to vote for politicians that pass laws to restrict companies, that's their choice.

It will drive up prices though, so people could already be making those choices with their purchasing and they're not.

People being stupid is not an excuse for not being able to do the right thing.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone 0 points 1 month ago

You're right, it's not an excuse, but I think it's the reason lol. If the only practical solution is systemic change, then we have to do that. I'm not good at that sort of thing though.

Actually one thing I have noticed is that the people around me notice what I do. Like if I buy the thing that is better for the environment, my friends and family ask me about it, and often they do the same thing. I know it's not the global change you're talking about, but just showing the people around you there are other ways has a powerful local effect.

For example, when I was healthy, I rode my bike to work every day. People noticed, but said I was crazy. Then 1 other person was inspired and did it too, and quickly we ended up with a bike club and most of the company was doing it. Then the company bought a bike shed for parking to support us. It was great. All just because I did my own thing and people noticed and thought it was a good idea. I think that's probably the only real practical way we can influence the world as individuals.

[–] luthis 1 points 1 month ago

'because the alternative is going to cost them more'

This is one of those things that you have to let go of. While it makes sense, it is not a guiding factor for corporate decisions.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I get what you’re saying but it isn’t a binary thing. There is blame to go around across consumers and governments, but at the base of the tree of blame are the rich. Always the rich.

[+] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nah, the blame primarily lies solely with the complacency of the population. They want cheap and easy, they get cheap and easy.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

People “want cheap and easy” the way a fish “wants” to swim in the direction the current is flowing. The current was engineered by the companies you're letting off the hook. You're blaming people for responding rationally to a landscape they didn't build and can't control.

If the population is complacent, the question is “who benefits from that complacency and who works to maintain it”. You're looking at the effect and calling it the cause.

Or fix the problem today on your own. Oh, you can’t? Well… QED.

[+] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You have this backwards. The current is being manufactured by demand, not manufacturing the demand. People WANT cheaper and easier.

You walk into a shoe store, you want some new everyday shoes, there are cheap and expensive versions. The pricier set has better materials for durability and comfort, and took more R&D to develop. The expensive shoes will last twice as long and be more comfortable, but are twice as expensive as the cheaper option. The pollution from each of the shoes is pretty similar. The company makes a profit of $5 from the cheap shoes, and $10 from the expensive shoe.

The shoe companies don't care which one they sell you, they want to make the most profit and both types make them the same amount of profit (you need two pairs of the cheap shoes over the life of an expensive pair)

The majority of people will buy the cheaper pair.

Did the company engineer it so that you would buy the cheaper pair and pollute more? Or is the company just forced to produce them because that's what people are choosing to buy?

There are situations and products where buying the expensive version is actually significantly CHEAPER long term, and people still choose the worst long-term option. Electric cars for example have had lower TCO (Total cost of ownership) in many areas (not all) and usage cases for a while now, and you still see people buying brand new gas vehicles. They also have a much lower lifetime environmental impact.

Again, the car company doesn't give a crap. They get their profit on every unit sold regardless. They just make what people want to buy.

You are giving companies far too much credit for how much power they have. There are exceptions of course (Cough Cigarettes Cough) where companies are being blatantly evil by doing things like manufacturing demand through addiction, but the vast majority of companies have no such capability and the most "engineering" you're going to get from them is an advertising campaign.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You have the causality exactly backwards.

Your shoe example is beautifully rigged: you've contrived a scenario where both options pollute equally and the company profits the same either way; so of course the only variable left is consumer choice. How handy. But in the real world, the company decided what to produce, how to price it, and what trade-offs to build in. The cheap shoe exists because the company chose to manufacture it at that price point rather than, say, making only the durable version and pricing it at 1.3x. The product landscape a corporate decision. You're treating the menu as if it fell from the sky.

You dismiss demand engineering as "just an advertising campaign." Advertising is a multi-hundred-billion-dollar industry built on decades of behavioral psychology, and that's before you get to planned obsolescence, lobbying to suppress alternatives, and regulatory capture to keep externalities unpriced. Cigarettes aren't the exception; they're the most documented example of a widespread practice.

Your EV example backfires even harder. For decades, automakers actively killed electric vehicle programs and lobbied against emissions standards. The "choice" you're pointing to was shaped by years of corporate behavior. And even now, when TCO is lower, upfront cost still gates the decision. If you can't aford the higher initial purchase, long-term savings are irrelevant. That's not irrationality. That's resource scarcity doing exactly what it's designed to do.

Choice requires resources: money, time, information, access; which is precisely what is most scarce among those you're blaming. And that scarcity is systemic by design, not a result of consumer inaction. You're looking at people responding rationally to a landscape they didn't build, can't control, and can't afford to exit, and calling it their fault.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -4 points 1 month ago

I'm not getting it backward.

While you're right that my example is simplified, it's not wrong. Shoes are actually like that in real life. A good pair of shoes can last many times as long as the cheap shoes, and pollute the same or even less than cheap ones. There is significant market competition from different companies including small start up brands and long term high quality brands that keep the entire industry quite well balanced.

If two companies produce high quality expensive shoes, that a customer likes equally, the only thing driving the consumer choice is going to be price. So one company cuts their costs a little bit to compete by dropping the quality ever so slightly. Consumers buy that, and then the other company says "I can do that too" cuts it a little bit more to undercut and it goes back and forth. The expensive shoes didn't stop existing, customers can still choose them, but they aren't choosing them. The back and forth only stops when the consumers refuse to buy it any cheaper because the quality is no longer even acceptable to them.

That is ENTIRELY customer driven. The moment a company releases a product that isn't sufficient, consumers stop buying it, and the company goes back to the product that does sell and generate profit for them.

Car companies lobbied to kill emissions standards not because they didn't want to produce EVs, but because it would cost them profit as fewer people bought cars that were more expensive to meet the standards. Oil companies may have tried to kill EV programs, but that's not the car companies.

Upfront price isn't real, people who are broke finance cars. An non-luxury EV is effectively the same price per month as a gas vehicle unless you don't drive very much (no commute or very short commute) or happen to live somewhere where electricity rates are extremely high and gas costs are extremely low.

Your lack of education cannot be blamed on companies. That is YOUR responsibility, not theirs. The information is available for free to everyone at this point, even homeless people have access to the internet at this point. The fact that people choose not to be informed can only be blamed on them.

You may want to pretend that you're not responsible because it lets you pick the easier option and not feel like you're bad, but it's no more real than crashing into a parked car and getting mad at them for being in your way.

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The world already knows to stop climate change we need to stop burning fossil fuels and reduce meat consumption. Teaching a spam bot to say it won't change anything.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The link between fossil fuels and AI is contrived. The link between meat consumption and AI is hallucinatory.

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I fear you completely missed my point.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Read that again, it's the link between those and global warming.

[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 8 points 1 month ago

I think they'd tell you it was a hallucination, that the new version+1 model will have smarter answers, will tell us how to solve climate change for real this time. Probably by building solar powered concentration camps.

Because powerful actors are not about to start doing what an AI says. Rather, powerful actors will figure out ways to manipulate AI into supporting the things they already want to do. An accountability sink. Like a new sort of religion for people who claim to be "rational."

[–] DougPiranha42@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

If by AI you refer to chat bots powered by large language models, as it became common, then the question doesn’t make sense, because those can say anything and everything and its opposite.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Anytime AI spits out something the user doesn't like, they ask again...

Just over and over again. When someone thinks they're "learning to prompt" all they're learning is how to get the result they want, not the correct result.

This has been happening very publicly with Musk and his AI, because instead of asking it over and over, he changes the code but keeps failing.

[–] lyralycan@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Someone recommended I ask AI how to solve datacenter-related destruction of the surroundings in favour of AI, and its response was more AI can help ensure accidents don't happen

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago

That sounds more like a protection racket than good advice.

[–] missingno@fedia.io 3 points 1 month ago

They still haven't shut down their dependence on fossil fuels, so

[–] Baggie@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago

Nah, it's the same business as when it recommends trains.

[–] iceberg314@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 month ago

Companies would only do it if you could convince them it would make them profit in the near future

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Would companies do it ?

would they make money from it?

no.

the answer to both is, no.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Out of all the currently known Things we need to do to mitigate climate change, can you name any that corporations have done willingly?

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 1 points 1 month ago

The puppet masters in charge would simply fabricate a new narrative and force it upon the population until they all believed it

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

It's the latter, they've been doing the latter for years now

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

What could they do? Let's say it's factual. If AI remains a commodity that no one has exclusive control then the only thing would be to:

A. Coordinated propaganda machine that dooms everyone eventually
B. Pivot

I don't think A is likely and billionaires who fund AI would just find a different subject. It has been done before, many times over.

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

We would have to do way way more than that, goodness it would be nice though if it was that easy. We were in hot water long before 2017.

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

AI doesn't say shit.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I did the math (go look at my comment history) and AI total global energy use is projected to be around 0.4% of the total global energy use by 2030.

There is no way that shutting down AI is even part of the solution to climate change.

Edit: Why are people so resistant to Facts about AI? Nobody is saying I'm wrong, nobody is sharing an article with different calculations that show it's worse than that. The sheer emotion of Anti-AI sentiment has completely broken the ability for people to think critically or even allow other people to provide evidence at this point. It's not AI that's going to doom us, it's people refusing to even acknowledge reality that will be our downfall.

[–] luthis 2 points 1 month ago

Hit the nail on the head there

[–] marud@piefed.marud.fr 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What do you put in the 0.4 % ?

Just the running cost, or everything that comes with ? (Datacenters usage, water consumption, hardware building)

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

It's total global energy usage. Water consumption is a different factor, and most of the datacenters now being built don't even use any. The hardware constructions is a trivial component of the overall picture.

[–] Epp@lemmus.org 0 points 1 month ago

They've been taught to hate AI. Hate is all they know, and pesky facts aren't going to change their minds.