Ask HN: Do you ever think about the environmental impacts of the AI datacenters?

(Initial context: I am quite concerned about the environment in general. Younger me even studied environmental engineering because I wanted my career to be in service of the environment. I have fallen far short in practice, though.)

Some months ago, I investigated details enough to convince myself that, barring new evidence or developments, the environment impacts of data centers are not significant enough for me to boycott personally using genAI. (I mean their impact globally; for any specific data center, there could be an environmental impact I would find unacceptable.)

(I did not keep track of my sources, unfortunately. I internalized that research into a tentative conclusion.)

That is, I concluded that my efforts to benefit the environment are better directed toward other types of personal choices. (For example, earlier this year, I replaced a ~20 MPG vehicle with a ~45 MPG one; and from 2004 through 2018 I had a Civic Hybrid (~40 MPG). And I avoid driving when possible, but I still do drive. Etc. -- numerous partial measures to be less environmentally destructive. Enough to reduce my guilt and pretend to myself that I'm an environmentalist.)

[Edit: minor edits for clarity and brevity.]

Yes but i am thinking about all datacenters, AI datacenters are same as meta datacenters or netflix etc. Everyone wants theyr private netflix account to watch films and movies and post nonsense on socials but AI that actually helps is the problem... sure. I think that eco maniacs and everyone who is against AI should first consider not using any aps/servers and then they can talk

No I only spend time thinking about actual important things.

I spend hours/days of my time designing table schemas, protocols, standards, conventions at work to make sure the decisions are as future proof as possible.

Yes but I don't consider most of them to be a problem.