So... What does it do for Firefox?
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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Probably default search engine?
@veganpizza69 @RustyNova then they lose google money, no?
@veganpizza69 oh they're actually banning google from paying for its search
Yeah. It's a small dilemma :)
I love the irony in how ecosia brands itself an environmentally responsible organisation while hosting a chat bot on it's search page, burning 10x the energy of regular search. Their chat bot even gaslights me when I ask about this by telling me how the energy consumption for "AI" technologies is actually highly variable, and I should check my own carbon footprint first xD. At this point, both organisations are so utterly self deluded, they should get on like a house on fire. Literally!
Why the F is this lie propagated so much in Lemmy? Using "10x the energy as a google search" is a miniscule amount. You get like 150 queries for 1hr of watching TV. It's not a big deal compared to anything. Hell, using a hairdryer for 10 mins will get you a shitload of queries too, yet people don't go up in arms against them.
The chatbot is right. Your carbon footprint is humongous compared to it.
This is true for one single search. But then when you run a huge operation like a search engine provider, multiplying energy consumption by 10 is suddenly fucked up. Google suddenly using ten times more energy is not a "miniscule amount".
Researcher Jesse Dodge did some back-of-the-napkin math on the amount of energy AI chatbots use.
“One query to ChatGPT uses approximately as much electricity as could light one light bulb for about 20 minutes,” he says. “So, you can imagine with millions of people using something like that every day, that adds up to a really large amount of electricity.”
Electricity is one thing, water is another. The whole thing is an environmental disaster and Ecosia has zero credibility as far as I'm concerned.
It is a miniscule amount still... You cannot look at the total consumption and say "it's too much!" without comparing to the various other usages. That'll only show that it is popular and nothing else.
Also, bullshit on the lightbulb, unless we are talking LEDs which are taking like 20W and are the most efficient a light source has ever been. And even that is 10x less than claimed at least. A 100W regular lightbulb, for 20 mins is 33Wh. A ChatGPT query is 0.001kWh, which is 1Wh, 33x less than what they claim.
That's what I mean. Do the math yourself instead of relying on the sensationalist articles. What uses a lot of power, is the training, that is done once / rarely. Querying is barely a blip compared to other usages. Hell, my small factory / shop where I make medical equipment has a CNC, tiny injection molder and a dehumidifier running 24/7. I got 2MWh last year, which made like 500 small medical devices. It'd be enough for an entire large IT company querying the hell out of ChatGPT for development.
Millions of people using AI means the technology is useful to people. Just as google search is useful to people. Hell, a person/s (working in shifts) using a PC 24/7 to provide the same chatbot experience would use way much more power to do it, than the chatbot did, assuming the need is just one agent. Multiply it to something popular where hundreds are needed, and you get a ridiculous amount. For context - my PC, with a monitor, speakers, keyboard mouse etc, uses 90 - 150W sitting iddle, with 16 chrome tabs open, when I type up this comment - according to my UPS.
AI deserves a lot of shit for a lot of things. Electricity use is not one of them.
What's Ecosia's business model? How can they afford to plant trees on top of running a search engine?
I think it's basically Bing under the hood but Ecosia provide their own adverts on the search results page
Ads make a lot of money
I can't get it to load but their financials are supposedly here https://ecosia.co/finreportsen
It loads for me. They've always been very transparent about their finances, huge selling point for me
Some people complain that they spend too much on operations, but honestly for what they do even if it's just a layer over Bing and Google, it seems fine. I checked some of their job offers and the salaries are nothing special. I doubt their CEO is earning millions like certain other non profits...
Since the blog doesn't seem to mention it. https://www.ecosia.org/ be aware that they use Google Tag Manager
Privacy policy is here https://www.ecosia.org/privacy this page does not have Google crap
Search results page uses Sentry analytics
So in the wake of the decision that lost them their Google partnership, Mozilla Corp is trying to cozy up to Bing frontends instead? I wish I could say that I'm surprised.
What do you want them to do instead? Print money?
No, I want them to either reduce the CEO's salary or just fire the CEO, and just the Foundation volunteer board as the board of directors at no salary or stipend.
Well, the CEO that you're talking about quit earlier this year. Probably wasn't getting paid enough. 🫠 We'll have to see how much the new CEO is getting paid.
And I do not see why unpaid workers should buckle down and inform themselves about everything going on in the company as well as the tech sector to be able to make informed decisions.
For the same reason they inform themselves already to be part of an open-source project? Besides most of the focus they need to have is making the best possible browser with the most W3C-compliant feature set.