Well, running them does. And, from what I get from the article, that's what they're trying to do: either running them or having someone do it for them as a service.
How big is that impact? Well, that's a complicated issue.
Running LLMs does not have any intrinsic impact on the climate.
If you want to talk about the impact of different power generation methods on climate change, fair enough, but I don't think this thread is the place for it. Unless of course the idea is to talk about climate change in every single thread centered on "things that consumes energy", which is approximately all of them.
Of course, I was setting up a plain definition without magnitude. The impact could be near nil, or could be huge, but an impact nonetheless.
I didn't want to deep dive on it, as I though it would sidetrack the comments. I think this is a subject that merits certain analysis, as in some cases the discourse around the energy use has been akin to the one used in the highest moments of the past crypto/NFT cycle: "Yeah, it's not clean but it could."
And to that:
- It could, but it isn't (not only because of the popular gas turbines, but with collateral damage like the water use or heating, or by other social issues around it)
- But also (and this would be more philosophical/social), even if it were clean... is it worth it?
How about indirect? At any rate, something is going on, because our summers are more and more hotter, and there are no snow during our winters. We are all noticing it but it gets shrugged off as "misremembering". I am not contributing it to running LLMs alone, however, but climate change seems real enough to me, I experience it. It is barely July and I am dying! We used to have more tolerable weather around this time of year, for a long time.
Yes, but what does climate change have to do specifically with LLMs? How are they different from any other use of energy? As far as I can tell they are better than most uses, given that (as software) they run entirely with electricity, which of course can be generated with near-zero CO2 emissions.
Given that, this interjection about climate change seems like a complete non-sequitur to the topic at hand.
