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Whenever I read discourse on AI energy/water use that focuses on the "median query," I can't help but feel misled. Coding agents like Claude Code send hundreds of longer-than-median queries every session, and I run dozens of sessions a day. On my blog: www.simonpcouch.com/blog/2026-01...

cc @andymasley.bsky.social @simonwillison.net might be interesting for you guys

(1/2) AI's very fast-moving and coding agents didn't exist when I started. I can only really cover so much at once. I wish people saying "it's deceptive to not also cover X" would consider just how many individual angles you need to cover.

(2/2) I would be a little surprised if the audience talking about AI and the environment were also regularly using coding agents, they've seemed pretty distinct.

At the point of coding agents, a lot of people have to start to make comparisons between the value they're getting out of AI vs other things. If I had a dishwasher that could do what Claude Code could do in a day, I'd probably run it once a day without feeling bad about its environment impact

In this case, I suspect the answer is "humans are a lot less energy/water efficient per unit labor than claude code" (for the tasks that claude code can solve)