Episode 43: AI Companies Gamble with Everyone's Planet (feat. Paris Marx), October 21 2024

Technology journalist Paris Marx joins Alex and Emily for a conversation about the environmental harms of the giant data centers and other water- and energy-hungry infrastructure at the heart of LLMs and other generative tools like ChatGPT -- and why the hand-wavy assurances of CEOs that 'AI will fix global warming' are just magical thinking, ignoring a genuine climate cost and imperiling the clean energy transition in the US.
Paris Marx is a tech journalist and host of the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us. He also recently launched a 4-part series, Data Vampires, (which features Alex) about the promises and pitfalls of data centers like the ones AI boosters rely on.
References:
Eric Schmidt says AI more important than climate goals
Microsoft's sustainability report
Sam Altman's “The Intelligence Age” promises AI will fix the climate crisis
Previously on MAIHT3K: Episode 19: The Murky Climate and Environmental Impact of Large Language Models, November 6 2023
Fresh AI Hell:
Rosetta to linguists: "Embrace AI or risk extinction" of endangered languages
A talking collar that you can use to pretend to talk with your pets
Google offers synthetic podcasts through NotebookLM
An AI 'artist' claims he's losing millions of dolalrs from people stealing his work
University hiring English professor to teach...prompt engineering
Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.
Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.
Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.
Follow us!
Emily
Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social
Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender
Alex
Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social
Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex
Twitter: @alexhanna
Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park.
Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.