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The AI Age perpetuates fossil fuel burning - High Country News
www.hcn.org
The newest phase of the Information Age is now fully here. It is defined by artificial intelligence, the digital cloud, remote work, and a massive shift from the physical world into cyberspace.
When I felt optimistic a few decades ago, I imagined this future would be like the world of The Jetsons. The loud noise of machinery would fade, replaced by a quiet hum. Robots and AI would handle boring, repetitive jobs, freeing people to work only nine hours a week at a digital job.
This new era seemed like a major upgrade from the worn-out Industrial Age, primarily because it would be paired with an energy transition. We would abandon our clunky old machines, smokestacks, pollution, and gas engines. We would trade them for sleek electric cars powered by cleaner, quieter energy sources like wind and solar power.
Now, the future has arrived. AI is everywhere, whether you want it or not. It can't wash your dishes, and even though it has started taking jobs, it hasn't eliminated the need to work for a living. It can correct spelling, help researchers analyze huge sets of data, diagnose illnesses, and even provide a form of mental health counseling. However, it can also insert unintended language into your messages, produce meaningless emails and awkward high school essays, and casually copy the work of artists, writers, and journalists.
This new age has amazing parts, but it is also disappointing and confusing. It is true that it has coincided with a shift to cleaner energy. Burning coal to generate electricity has been declining since 2007, while solar, wind, and battery storage have grown rapidly.
Yet, instead of letting us abandon the most outdated part of the Industrial Age—creating power by burning fossil fuels—the Information Age has helped continue this dirty practice. Our most futuristic, new technologies still depend on ancient energy sources.
Every AI query or other online task that uses cloud computing is handled by data centers. These are warehouse-like buildings filled with rows of powerful servers that process digital information. Each individual task might use a small amount of electricity. However, a single data center handling millions of queries every day can consume as much power as an entire city.