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 (parismarx.com) is a tech journalist and host of the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us (techwontsave.us). He also recently launched a 4-part series, Data Vampires (techwontsave.us/episode/241_data_vampires_goin…), (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 (mashable.com/article/former-google-ceo-invest-…)
Microsoft's sustainability report (microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/s…)
Sam Altman's “The Intelligence Age” (ia.samaltman.com) 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 (buzzsprout.com/2126417/episodes/13931174-episo…)
Fresh AI Hell:
Rosetta to linguists: "Embrace AI or risk extinction" of endangered languages (facebook.com/groups/lingtyp/permalink/90783308…)
A talking collar that you can use to pretend to talk with your pets (wired.com/story/shazam-talking-pet-collar-a-ch…)
Google offers synthetic podcasts through NotebookLM (chronicle.com/article/those-voices-on-the-podc…)
An AI 'artist' claims he's losing millions of dolalrs from people stealing his work (gizmodo.com/famous-ai-artist-says-hes-losing-m…)
University hiring English professor to teach...prompt engineering (higheredjobs.com/region/details.cfm?JobCode=17…)

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Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park (naomipleasurepark.com).
Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.