What is Shopify, and Speero, doing to lessen the environmental impact of the use of AI? These computations take huge amounts of energy to produce and water to cool the data centers. Has there been any focus in the work to mitigate or eliminate this environmental damage? Do you own these data centers or do they belong to another company? What kind of power grid do they work on? Where are the data centers located geographically? Is there any danger of these data centers being in a wildfire zone?
Is this use of AI necessary for all users? Is there a way to disable it if not?
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To clarify, I’m not directly involved with Shopify or Speero’s infrastructure decisions, but I can speak to the broader concerns you’re highlighting.
AI shouldn’t be a default “always on”. Use it intentionally and know what you want to get out of it.
Be intentional with usage: Not every task needs AI.
Reducing unnecessary prompts, training, or model use can cut down energy waste.
Minimise data footprint: Large-scale logging, unnecessary image generation, or storing outputs indefinitely all add up.
Being conscious of what data is collected and how long it’s kept makes a difference.
You can still get the benefits of LLMs, but run them locally with options like https://ollama.com/ (however if you’re running it 24/7 any gains may be negligible)
Paul
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