Innovations in Hypocrisy

Electricity demand for massive data centers used for AI and cryptocurrencies is growing rapidly, and by 2026, may equal the power consumed by the entire country of Japan. A researcher quoted in the linked Vox article notes that generative AI can, in many cases, use 30-40 times more energy for the exact same task (such as an internet query) than earlier technology. Microsoft talks a good game about climate change and using AI to accelerate decarbonization, but at the same time, they’ve been marketing AI to ExxonMobil and Chevron as a way to find oil and gas reserves and speed up production.

Then there’s Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputing facility in Memphis. The area where it was just built is a historically Black neighborhood already suffering from high asthma and premature death rates due to pollution from other industrial activity. The data center requires so much power that some 18 portable methane gas-burning generators have been installed to run it, bathing the community in smog. The plant powers Musk’s chatbot called Grok, which is integrated with X/Twitter and has a “fun” mode that delivers mildly profane responses and, according to Vice, is prone to spreading inaccuracies.

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