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Comment by crimbles | Hacker News Reader

Is that the same Microsoft which is throwing money into running environmentally destructive AI workloads as their key business driver?

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Same Microsoft that's forcing roughly 250 million perfectly fine PCs to be replaced due to new Windows 11 "requirements" and Windows 10 EOL.

Love these two comments, nail on the head there.

But they can't blame the users for that, so that's not a problem.

Please stop parroting this FUD. After Windows 10 stops getting supported, Microsoft won't come in your house and throw away your PC in the dumpster or have it stop working for you to have to throw it away. You can keep using it like before.

People don't throw away hardware just because the software stopped getting updates. Although not recommended, there's even people still using Windows 7.

No, they will just cut off security updates. They will then steadily make subtle changes to the OS to ensure new software won't ever run on your old machine. Then the day comes when whatever new tool you need to do your job just will not run on your old machine. Then you dump it and blame yourself for the waste.

I tried to give away my old laptop to a charity. They wouldn't take anything more than four years old, and nothing that wasn't running windows 10. Anyone want a free laptop? I've got one sitting in the closet that I cannot seem to give away.

HN: AI is all clean energy from the clouds. Crypto uses coal and toxic waste for power. /s

reddit: all technology I've been convinced to perceive as morally objectionable is ruining the environment and should be banned by the world government.

Are Google's, Meta's, Tencent's or Alibaba's AI workloads more environmentally friendly, or what am I missing from this point?

And AI's are destructive for the environment why? Is it more environmentally friendly to waste a lot more human time with less compute power doing mundane repetitive shit for hours that an AI/LLM can summarize or answer in seconds?

With that logic it's also more environmentally friendly to use an ox to plow the fields instead of a diesel John Deer.

No they are just as bad.

Then why single out Microsoft? And you haven't explained why are they bad.

This thread is about Microsoft, it’s pointing out their hypocrisy feigning concern about the environmental footprint of their cloud infrastructure.

Still no answer on why AIs are bad for the environment compared to not using AIs.

https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/how-much-water-does-ai-consume

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

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