@yogthos@lemmy.ml @usa@lemmy.ml

On the one hand, we shall bring some napkin math to the table.

A human brain consumes something around 20W (Balasubramanian V. Brain power. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Aug 10;118(32):e2107022118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2107022118. PMID: 34341108; PMCID: PMC8364152).

One hour = 20 Wh, or 20 × 3.6 = 72 kJ
One day = 72 kJ × 24 hours = 1728 kJ or 1.728 MJ
One year = 1.728 MJ × 365.25 ~= 631.152 MJ
20 years ~= 12.6 GJ

The entire world population in 2024 (you’ll understand soon why I’m using 2024) was estimated as 8,141,808,945 (World Bank Group, World Development Indicators)
Rough brain power consumption for all humans who were alive in 2024 (I’m using values for one year instead of 20yo bc the 8 bi. accounts for all ages) = 8,141,808,945 × 631.152 MJ ~= 5.14 EJ (Exajoules)

Globally, data centers (excluding cryptocurrency mining) used an estimated 415 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2024
(Agrawal H. "Data Center Energy Consumption: How Much Energy Did/Do/Will They Eat?, Clean Energy Forum, University of Yale, 2025 Nov 12, https://cleanenergyforum.yale.edu/2025/11/12/data-center-energy-consumption-how-much-energy-diddowill-they-eat)

In Joules it’s 415 TWh × 3.6 = 1.494 EJ (Exajoules)

My napkin math may be heavily inaccurate (hence “napkin”) but, yeah, Math tells us humans (roughly) consumed more than all non-cryptocurrency data centers (1.49 EJ is less than the 5.14 EJ required by 8 billion Homo sapiens for thinking).

And I’m only considering brain power. The number would certainly be bigger if I were to consider the rest of metabolic consumption, this would further consolidate the entire humanity, when taken together, as indeed consuming more energy than AI data centers worldwide.

On the other hand, hell no! I’m not gonna agree with Sam Altman! Especially bc they’re ignoring several factors.

For starters, the fact that AI and their data centers required humans, so the “human energetic bill” is shared with AIs, not disconnected from them. After all, AI is not something existing in a vacuum.

Fossil fuel, the elephant in the room, is another factor in play: I didn’t research a CO2 side-by-side comparison between human-emitted CO2 (from biological processes such as respiration) and the the amount of CO2 emitted to keep said data centers running, but this can’t be ignored.

Homo sapiens (usually) don’t ingest fossil fuels (i.e. in normal situations, we don’t drink gasoline… nor we eat coal).

Meanwhile, global data centers seem far from achieving green energy (e.g. hydro power), they rely heavily on fossil fuels, therefore they’re expected to be breathing out more CO2 than humans.

Tables would only turn regarding CO2 when (and if, a big if, considering how AI is currently at the hands of corps who, in turn, deny and ignore the climate change because “line must go up”) data centers pivoted to full (and true, not the “green-washing” creative accounting that tech corps usually do) green energy.

Implying he ever had one. Before he rebranded as a tech bro he was a common finance ghoul. His eyes have never known the light of humanity.

Did I miss the “read more” button? Is that really just 2 paragraphs long? How could that article have a writer when it’s just saying what Altman said? Shouldn’t Altman get the credit?