But to be honest, optimizing monstrously slow processes that cost weeks of human labour by automating them, that saves a ton of energy as well. It’s not zero sum, as the humans spend that energy elsewhere, but ideally they spend it on more productive things.
This calculus can very quickly offset whatever energy is wasted generating cartoon images of vuvuzelas.
> optimizing monstrously slow processes that cost weeks of human labour by automating them, that saves a ton of energy as well
Yes, I do agree with this. However, that's only good as long as there wasn't a better way of optimizing them. Assuming we'd not be better off getting rid of those costly process altogether.
> ideally they spend it on more productive things
Same gotcha as mentioned in my other comment: "productive" in our growth economy often means "damaging to the environment", because we are collectively spending a lot of our time producing garbage and that's not something we should really optimize. Most of us work a fixed amount of hours so it's not like we are doing ourselves any favor by optimizing time in the end.
In another system, I wouldn't say. I'm generally for freeing up time for us so we can have better lives.
But to be honest, optimizing monstrously slow processes that cost weeks of human labour by automating them, that saves a ton of energy as well. It’s not zero sum, as the humans spend that energy elsewhere, but ideally they spend it on more productive things.
This calculus can very quickly offset whatever energy is wasted generating cartoon images of vuvuzelas.