Hi, On 8/20/26 6:30 PM, Aigars Mahinovs wrote:
It is a basic failure of logic. If you claim that "all dogs are black" and I show you a white dog, then your argument is refuted. It does not matter how many black dogs you can show. It does not matter that the few very popular dogs that are all the time on TV are all black right now. I hope that clarifies my line of argument.
Yes, it means that your argument hinges on the hope that one day an AI provider will appear that is not destroying the environment.
That is theoretically possible, but so far has not happened at even the lowest level, where we accept the argument that paying the "renewables" rate for electricity is sufficient.
Looking at the system as a whole, it is not: as long as nonrenewables are part of the same grid, any additional consumption will slow down the phase-out of nonrenewables -- even a datacenter running 100% on solar power is a net negative compared to a solar park of the same size without an attached consumer.
You are correct in that we should *also* be more diligent in what we do with CI. Computing had already become a lot more wasteful before the advent of AI because flat-rate cost models made it worthwhile, and that attitude got transferred over the AI world.
I suspect that this will change soon as well, because increased hardware prices will also affect the business model where a generous amount of CI time is essentially free for open source projects, in the hope that the people will get used to it, and convince their companies to buy the expensive business plans.
CI being expensive will also break agents that rely on test results in the feedback loop.
Simon
OpenPGP_0xEBF67A846AABE354.asc
Description: OpenPGP public key
OpenPGP_signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
