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Comment by bumby | Hacker News Reader

Try putting it in a different context because I think you are weighing both “AI” and “household operation” the same. For the use case you mentioned (image generation) what do you think has a bigger impact on someone’s quality of life: 1) operating a home or 2) generating AI images?

I would argue most people would weigh the convenience of a house a lot higher. That doesn’t mean AI is a net negative, just that it’s important to frame the problem that focuses on what matters most to people (quality of life).

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> what do you think has a bigger impact on someone’s quality of life: 1) operating a home or 2) generating AI images? [...] I would argue most people would weigh the convenience of a house a lot higher.

To meaningfully compare directly like this, you'd need to choose two things with similar energy usage/carbon footprint. Sure "the convenience of a house" is greater, but a person's usage of an image-generation model also consumes many orders of magnitude less energy.

For a balanced comparison:

* A full year of LLM usage (5 joules per token[0] * 200 tokens per query * 10 queries per day * 365 days per year = 1.014kWh, which by the US's energy mix[1] is about 0.4kg of CO2)

* A single cup of coffee (about 0.4kg of CO2 according to [2])

With that, I think most pepole would gain considerably more utility from the former.

[0]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.03003

[1]: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11

[2]: https://www.co2everything.com/co2e-of/coffee

What does "operating a home" mean to you? Boiling water in the evening for tea (most people will fill the kettle up)? 100 Wh = 50 prompts? Which one's more important?

For me? The tea. To my point above, it adds a lot more to my quality of life. For someone else, it may be completely different. I’m not saying one has to be valued over the other, just that the issue should be framed more appropriately.

(Your numbers would also not be accurate for me. I warm tea in a microwave, so it’s closer to 15 W-hr)

For other people AI is a tool for education, as it can explain concepts, is never tired and doesn't get bored. What is more important, a cup of tea or understanding that one thing you never had time for.

Are we really going to go down this road of bad-faith arguing? I could easily say “what’s more important, a learning a hobby or having shelter and food?” (Besides, this goes against the HN guidelines of assuming the strongest position of the comment).

My point is not to claim one value system over another, but to frame the problem in a more appropriate light. I think, even taking your bad-faith stance above, it is still framed as “what adds more to one’s quality of life?”

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