this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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A ton of factors have increased energy costs on the web over the years. It's insignificant per person, but bandwidth is exponentially higher because all websites have miles of crud formatting code nowadays. Memory usage is out of control. Transmission and storage of all the metadata your web browser provides in realtime as you move your mouse around a page is infinitely higher than what we had in the early days of the web.
The energy cost of ML will reduce as chips progress, but I think the financial reality will come crashing down on the AI industry sooner rather than later and basically keep it out of reach for most people anyway due to cost. I don't see much of ROI for AI. Right now it's treated as a capital investment which helps inflate company worth while it lasts, but after a few years the investment is worthless and a giant money sink from energy costs if used.