I was reading a debate on LinkedIn where one side was arguing that "AI" image generators are more energy-efficient than hiring a photographer (or buying a stock photo).

One argument that made me do a painful face-palm was the notion that photographers need to eat, so they consume more energy.

The thing about humans is… wait for it… they ALWAYS need to eat. You can’t shift production to a computer and argue that it’s more efficient because it doesn’t eat. The human will keep eating(!) You are only adding energy-use.

These types of arguments illustrate a deep obliviousness towards human wellbeing. The argument only works if you expect the human to eat less when their job is taken away. Or die.

Their only data point for “AI" energy use was the point of generation, neatly excluding:

- all the energy used when scraping the internet for all the required datasets
- the energy used when building the model itself
- the energy used for required human workforce tasks, such as labeling (I bet those humans have to eat too)
- the energy used when building required data centers, both in-use and speculative investments (so many eating humans involved)
- the energy for hardware production and ongoing replacements
- the fact that the ease-of-use (and being “free”) encourages way, way more image generation than ever before…

Oh, and one more thing…

The image generator feeds on, and requires, photos and images taken and made by humans… who eat. Damn those humans.

Oh wait, the person doing the prompting… that person has to eat as well. It’s almost like it’s a human imperative.

Worth noting is also that none of the big "AI” companies are at all transparent about their energy consumption for this technology. Nor water consumption. Nor noise pollution. Nor e-waste. So there’s a ton of speculation.

I just wanted to make clear that I’m all for allowing humans to eat.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma