Hi Simon,
On 5/22/26 16:53, Simon Tournier wrote:
Hi Hugo, all,
On Wed, 20 May 2026 at 22:22, Hugo Buddelmeijer via "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU
System distribution." <[email protected]> wrote:
- It used 3x less package builds; probably a net positive in energy use.
Jevons argued that improvements in
fuel efficiency tend to increase (rather than decrease) fuel use,
Yes, I've learned this from "The Bottomless Well" by Huber and Mills.
(This is not a recommendation, but they got that part right.)
E.g. when travel becomes more efficient, we will travel more to make up
for it. When lights become more efficient, we will use more lights
(cars have lasers now).
It makes sense though, because if one component of your system increases
your return-on-investment, then it makes sense to shift investment
towards that component.
Whatever the solution is, it is not to ditch LEDs and use incandescent
light bulbs again. The solution is to either refrain from adding more
lights, or to use the efficiency gain to make up for it.
Translating to Guix: if refreshing packages is more efficient (per
package) using genAI, then we would loose that gain if we use that
efficiency to refresh more and more packages more and more often.
The solution is not refreshing packages by hand. The solution is having
a stable, maintainable set of packages.
Unless we believe that we as humankind cannot handle such technological
progress and that we cannot refrain ourselves. While that might be
true, such a stance would make a project like Guix pointless to begin
with in my opinion.
Hugo
