⚡ Does AI use too much energy? Should we care?

💡 5 Quick Questions for … journalist Robert Tracinski on why the robots won’t eat us

Quote of the Issue

“Man himself, at the very least, is music, a brave theme that makes music also of its vast accompaniment, its matrix of storms and stars.” - Olaf Stapledon, Last And First Men

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The Essay

Midjourney

⚡ Does AI use too much energy? Should we care?

Item: The first new nuclear reactor built in the United States in more than 40 years is now up and running in Waynesboro, Georgia. After more than a decade of construction and spiraling costs, Plant Vogtle Unit Three, the first of two new reactors at the site, started producing power at its full capacity in May. It’s expected to come online this month after a final round of tests. The new units at Plant Vogtle were the first nuclear construction approved in decades and are the country’s only new reactors in progress. - Grist, June 6, 2023

At the heart of the so-called era of “Cool Shit Futurism” — say, the mid-1950s through early 1970s — was the notion of cheap and plentiful energy. From warp-speed economic growth to air-conditioned bubble cities to a lunar colony, humanity’s next steps and leaps would be powered by nuclear fission and, eventually, fusion. Faster, please!

But then came the 1970s when oil shocks and environmental concerns — over both nuclear energy’s radiation risk and the unsustainable economic consumption powered by further expansion of nuclear energy — led to a focus on energy conservation rather than generation. The message from societal elites: We couldn’t have nice things if those things used lots of energy. So instead of flying cars we got K-cars.

Energy gobbling AI

Flash forward a half century: The energy conservation ethos, now also driven by concerns about climate change, remains surprisingly strong and widespread. I say “surprisingly” because there’s so been much clean and cleaner energy innovation this century that one might think many more, if not most, environmentalists would have shifted to an eco-modernist posture of seeking (clean) energy abundance. Let’s have nice things again!

But clearly this isn’t case. A few headlines:

• “AI Can Do Great Things — if It Doesn't Burn the Planet” - Wired

• “Artificial Intelligence Is Booming — So Is Its Carbon Footprint” - Bloomberg

• “The Generative AI Race Has a Dirty Secret” - Wired

• “AI’s carbon footprint is growing. Is it worth it?” - Marketplace

• “AI Dooms Humanity But Not In The Way You Think” - Forbes

That last headline really struck me.