Data Centers Could Save the Planet—If They Don’t Destroy It First

One argument that AI companies have made

is that AI is such a transformative technology

that if we get to AI, it will then allow us

to solve the climate crisis.

It will even, before we've reached, you know,

general intelligence or superintelligence,

it will create efficiencies

that make up for the excess power use.

How is that math borne out in your reporting?

I don't know if that's so much math

as like an idea, like a hope.

I know that a lot of companies,

like some folks have researched this,

a lot of AI companies that are touting changes,

you know, like, energy savings from AI,

or like climate improvements from AI,

a lot of the projects that have borne fruit

were just kind of like everyday machine learning.

They weren't LLMs, right?

They weren't building agents to solve the climate crisis.

I guess there could be an agent

that eventually solves the climate crisis,

but on our way there, we are building out

like some of the biggest gas plants in the world.

Like we are creating a feedstock

for the fossil fuel industry,

like right at a time when we need

to not be doing that as much.

And again, like anything is possible.

I'm gonna be the best-faith advocate here.

In five years, someone could make, you know,

there are a lot of nuclear companies, for instance,

starting up making small modular reactors.

The industry could do a complete about-face and say,

Clean energy only, we're doing it.

Or they could be like, We got more efficient.

You know, we don't need all these gas plants anymore.

And then I guess they would tear down the gas plants.

But like, you know, a lot of this

is just kind of like projecting

and projecting different scenarios.

And, like, there absolutely could be a world

in which I guess AI solves all the problems.

But there also is a world being built in real time right now

where we're just getting a lot more fossil fuels.

So I don't blame people for not being able

to kind of connect those two ideas together.