im gonna summarize this article using chatgpt
(causes nuclear meltdown)

I hate modern reporting.

So, ok, here we go, fact checking dot lemmy dot com.

Tihs one seems to come from Google's 2025 environmental report, which the article mentions but does not link despite being publicly available. The message Google would like you to take here is that while their power consumption has increased significantly their emissions have not (key chart below).

I guess that's what you get for trying to spin these things. You get spun right back.

Anyway, Google would also like you to know that:

“However, it’s important to note that our growing electricity needs aren’t solely driven by AI. The accelerating growth of Google Cloud, continued investments in Search, the expanding reach of YouTube, and more, have also contributed to this overall growth.”

This tracks. While power consumption seems to be speeding up a bit, it's been climbing for a while pretty consistently. I don't know of Google's implication that less CO2-heavy power generation is enough to not have to care about it, but I also don't really see a way to reverse this trend. Data centers are data centers, and whether they're crunching AI numbers or running every spreadsheet in the world, a bunch of big companies are committed to continuing to own a disproportionate chunk of the computing power of the entire planet so they can sell it to you by the minute.

Fusion powered AI, what’s up dystopia!

Sometimes I think AI is going to just sink us all with all the resources it requires.

Although to be fair, we were doing a good job of killing the planet before AI was on the rise.

First they'd have to get fusion power to produce net electricity, and then for it to produce it economically compared to other sources. We've made progress but it's been decades in the making and I'd be willing to bet will be a few decades more, even if I do expect it to get there one day.

But what's dystopian about fusion? It's just another energy source. A bit cleaner than some of the older ones, but not really anything fundamentally different.

I'm extremely excited to announce that huge companies never lie, especially when they self-publish these kinds of reports. Therefore, I trust this primary source fully.

edit: I don't want to be misconstrued. I am not saying that their environmental report is a total lie or distortion of the truth, either. I'm saying you cannot over-rely on primary sources when reporting on them.

Considering my website is being hit many times a day by hack attempts from bots running on google's cloud platform I'm sure that's part of it too. Anyone with a little money can apparently run a botnet off their servers.

That’s a nice chart if true.

But also “investments in Search” lmfao.

I’m guessing they are trying to catch up to AI via brute force?

What's dystopian is that a company like google will fight tooth and nail to remain the sole owner and rights holder to such a tech. A technology that should be made accessible outside the confines of capitalist motives.
Such technologies have the potential to lift entire populations out of poverty. Not to mention that they could mitigate global warming considerably.
It is simply not in the interest of humanity to allow one or more companies to hold a monopoly over such technology