>could LLMs actually be a net positive for the environment?
They produce a tremendous amount of heat in usage and at power generation. In most circumstances are powered by fossil fuels. I cant see how this would ever be justified.
>Should it earn all the benefits that come with ESG status?
Not a chance. AI is literally an antithesis to climate folks and ESG.
The ESG/climate folks should be opposing AI as much as possible.
What? AI is horrific for the environment from the embedded energy from the production necessary for the hardware and the energy required to train & run the LLMs. They use an insane amount of water and the resulting emissions are that of small countries.
Not only that, your argument depends on the saved emissions/energy consumption from laying off someone. Which is first and foremost just dark - but also how do you know that the laid off SWE isn't 10x more energy intensive when they're at home? Driving a lot, flying a lot, has a Ford F350, 5 kids and now runs AC all day while they're home?
> Am I missing something here?
Perhaps that the base environmental cost of a living human being is incurred no matter what they're doing. Replacing them with LLMs is just adding a new cost on top of the existing one. It is not removing the cost of the human.