At least they have an AI-free option, as annoying as it is to have to opt into it.
On a related note, it’s hilarious to me that the Ecosia search engine has AI built in. Like, I don’t think planting any number of trees is going to offset the damage AI has done and will do to the planet.
lol what? Do they have some kind of statement addressing that?
Yes they addressed it here. its kind of understandable given that they want to exist and everyone else has AI… But companies… At least you can turn it off.
I wish they would have talked about how many trees you need to offset an ecosia AI search
And make AI opt-in rather than opt-out so Ecosia can educate their users
I want to know what economic forces are making it so that having AI, which costs money and very few users actually want, such a forgone conclusion. Who is paying them?
At this point, not having AI would be a selling point.
someone tell them AI isnt good for the environment
I don’t get this argument when literally everything else is hundreds of times worse like lifestock and cars. Removing either one today would dramatically change the environment.
Do you drive a car or take any kind of transportation?
Ecosia produces its own green solar energy. According to them, they produce twice as much as they consume. The AI is still shit, because it is just ChatGPT.
Reducing the albedo of some area just to disperse the captured energy for no utility (ai) is still harmful to the environment and contributes to earth’s energy imbalance. Solar energy is great when it replaces fossil fuel emissions, not when it’s just wasted.
Well, I don’t know about that.
My swiss hoster just started offering AI and says that their AI infrastructure is 100 % powered by renewables and the waste heat is used for district heating.
You could argue that LLM training in itself used so much energy that you’ll never be able to compensate for the damage, but I don’t know. 🤷
While good, you should always keep in mind that using renewables for this means that power can’t be used for other purposes, meaning the difference has to be covered by other sources of energy. Always bear in mind that these things don’t exist in a vaccum. The resources they use always mean resources aren’t used elsewhere. At worst this would mean that new clean power is built to power a waste, and then old dirty power has to be used for everything else, instead of being replaced by clean energy.
That’s actually a very good point, thanks!
Yeah that reminds me of the data centres hogging green energy that was meant for households
The article already notes that
privacy-focused users who don’t want “AI” in their search are more likely to use DuckDuckGo
But the opposite is also true. Maybe it’s not 90% to 10% elsewhere, but I’d expect the same general imbalance because some people who would answer yes to ai in a survey on a search web site don’t go to search web sites in the first place. They go to ChatGPT or whatever.
It still creeps me out that people use LLMs as search engines nowadays.
So you make noai the default, yes?
And yet it’s opt out, not opt in.
Because the poll just ended… it’s been opt out since before the poll and nothing has changed, yet (if anything does change). How is this not obvious?
They should have asked before including AI in the first place.
Asking an existing userbase for any kind of change will pretty much always result in a no.
If the project requires minimal resources and doesn’t have a major downside, then implementing your own version before asking is fine.
They didn’t serve a bunch of ex alcoholics a full bottle of whisky, all they did is make you scroll twice on your mouse wheel.
Asking an existing userbase for any kind of change will pretty much always result in a no.
If you’re trying to position yourself as a search engine that hasn’t enshittified, don’t head down that road without asking. Know your userbase. They’re using duckduckgo for a reason.
Guess I’m in the 10%
You want to destroy our planet and pay way more in electricity for a random sentence generator to spit out slop?
