Author | Lightnews

Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 21h

Let me clarify: "AI" isn't bad. Over reliance on it to outsource your own brain power and the corporate plagiarism machine is bad.

Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 21h

This shit is why global warming is going to kill us.

Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 21h

30*200 is 60,000$ for my school to pay for the privilege of using nearly 5,000$ of electricity a month.

And my admin wants me to use it *more*

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Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 21h

That means assuming the average, my school ALONE uses enough electricity in one month to power almost 33 homes in Virginia.

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Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 21h

My school alone has roughly 200 teachers. 6000$ assuming the base price listed on ms website.

Copilot doesn't share the data, but Chatgpt does, and averages 20 queries a day per active user.

20*200*25 work days a month*.33kWh= 33000 kWh if every teacher was the average user at my school.

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Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 21h

Two seconds of searching:

One chatgpt query is about 1/3 kWh (per npr, 2024).

In Virginia, 1 kWh is roughly 15 cents.

Therefore, if 100 teachers use a similar AI for 3 questions a day for a month, that's 300$ a month at 2000 kWh.

At 30$ per user, that's 3000$ for us to ask it 3 questions

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Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 22h

How unreasonable, for someone with a passion for environmental conservation, might research the impact of a new technology and push back on its over use!

Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 22h

My direct supervisor was flabbergasted to hear AI that, a highly complex digital process that *he* think can do a portion of my job, the thing I'm paid to do, used exponentially more electricity than traditional Internet searches, and that I, an Earth science teacher, avoid using it.

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Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 22h

It's so green

Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 2d

As a science fiction fan, the issue I have right now with the state of AI as we currently see it is that it's way more ghost in the shell than I, robot, but lame.

The AI just a new corporate tool to undercut costs and it's not improving the lives of people tangibly.

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Ben Hirsh @bentheteacher.bsky.social · 15d

Hey, quick question.

Anyone know if the cost of sending the national guard into cities is more or less than the cost of USAID?

Cuz if I were someone worried about government spending, I'd really hate to see it wasted on a public disgrace like occupying your own country