We are calculating the cost of doing this task. I don't know how else we can be more clear.
Honestly I'm very unconvinced by this article author's sense of need to calculate the energy cost of the LLM as an argument against it. But if we're using it as an argument, it's only fair to compare how else the task can be completed (i.e. by the human) and what it would cost. What is there to not understand about this comparison?
Sure, so drop the training costs on both sides.
Imagine company sends you on a business trip to a different country, for a month-long stay. Okay, you exist and have to eat and sleep anyway, but I can't imagine you accepting this as an argument from your employer - "we don't need to reimburse your hotel or food or other expenses, after all, we're neither creating nor destroying you for purpose of this assignment, and you'll be eating and sleeping and bathing anyway".
If you really don’t understand how corporate travel arrangements work, I’ll clue you in:
Your employer reimburses your hotel even though you’d be sleeping anyway because your place to sleep doesn’t exist in the place they’re sending you. They pay your meals because eating out is more expensive than eating at home and your food and kitchen at home doesn’t exist in the place they’re sending you and also traveling is a pain so you deserve to treat yourself a little. They don’t generally reimburse your laundry costs unless you have stay more days than one can reasonably carry clean clothes for in a standard suitcase. Your bathing needs come free with the hotel.
I hope this helps you navigate the strange and confusing world we live in.
I don't see your problem with the comparisons. We don't have to hire people and train them for the job either. GPUs already exist and could be running something else than LLMs (say, crypto miners).
I feel it's you who's having problems drawing boundaries to allow for an apples-to-apples comparison.