I think the answer might be “we’ve moved a bit into the environment, in the sense that the entropy of the environment must have increased”?
Yes, entropy/information is conserved, so you can’t truly erase bits. Erasure just moves them across the boundary separating the computer and the environment. This typically manifests as heat.
Landauer’s principle is actually about the minimum amount of energy required to represent or maintain a bit reliably in the presence of thermal noise. Erasure/copying then results in equivalent heat energy release.
Yes, entropy/information is conserved, so you can’t truly erase bits. Erasure just moves them across the boundary separating the computer and the environment. This typically manifests as heat.
Landauer’s principle is actually about the minimum amount of energy required to represent or maintain a bit reliably in the presence of thermal noise. Erasure/copying then results in equivalent heat energy release.