It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what’s actually causing damage like vehicles and plane travel.
Estimates for [training and building] Llama 3 are a little above 500,000 kWh[b], a value that is in the ballpark of the energy use of a seven-hour flight of a big airliner.
That being said, it’s a malicious and stupidly formed comparaison. It’s like comparing the cost of building a house vs staying in a hotel for a night.
The model, once trained can be constantly re-used and shared. The llama model has been downloaded millions of time. It would be better to compare it to the cost of making the movie.
An average film production with a budget of $70 million leaves behind a carbon footprint of 3,370 metric tons – that’s the equivalent of powering 656 homes for a year!
It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what’s actually causing damage like vehicles and plane travel.
https://cacm.acm.org/blogcacm/the-energy-footprint-of-humans-and-large-language-models/
That’s around 570 average american homes.
That being said, it’s a malicious and stupidly formed comparaison. It’s like comparing the cost of building a house vs staying in a hotel for a night.
The model, once trained can be constantly re-used and shared. The llama model has been downloaded millions of time. It would be better to compare it to the cost of making the movie.
https://thestarfish.ca/journal/2025/01/understanding-the-environmental-impact-of-film-sets#%3A~%3Atext=While+it's+easy+to+get%2C656+homes+for+a+year!
The water consumed by data centers is a much bigger concern. They’re straining already strained public water systems.