Petro-Masculinity Versus the Planet (with Tamara Kneese), 2025.01.27

Sam Altman thinks fusion - particularly a company he's personally invested in - can provide the energy we "need" to develop AGI. Meanwhile, what if we just...put data centers on the Moon to save energy? Alex, Emily, and guest Tamara Kneese pour cold water on Silicon Valley's various unhinged, technosolutionist ideas about energy and the environment.
Dr. Tamara Kneese (tamarakneese.com) is director of climate, technology and justice at the Data & Society Research Institute (datasociety.net)
Due to some technical issues during our recording, this week's episode is a bit shorter than usual.
References:
A data center … on the moon?? (techspot.com/news/106470-first-ever-data-cente…)
Sam Altman is banking on fusion (bloomberg.com/features/2025-sam-altman-interview)
Greenland is the new Mars (techcrunch.com/2024/11/15/i-went-to-greenland-…)
“Regenerative finance” in the crypto era (blog.refidao.com/refi-deep-dive-moss)
Fears of subprime carbon assets stall crypto mission to save rainforest (reuters.com/article/markets/oil/fears-of-subpr…)
Corporate carbon offset company accidentally starts devastating wildfire (vice.com/en/article/corporate-carbon-offset-co…)
The AI/crypto crossoverAI/crypto crossover no one asked for (youtube.com/watch?v=EKspo1FLj-4)
Blockchains wanted to build a smart city. The state could not sign off on its water rights (thenevadaindependent.com/article/blockchains-w…)
On petro-masculinity (journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/030582981…)
Predatory delay and other myths of sustainable AI (ainowinstitute.org/publication/predatory-delay…)
Book: Digital Energetics (upress.umn.edu/9781517915872/digital-energetics), on Bitcoin/AI computing as a larger energy problem
Fresh AI Hell:
Fake books about indigenous languages (anishinabeknews.ca/2024/10/22/fraudulent-anish…)
Surveillance company harrasses own employees with cameras (bsky.app/profile/jasonkoebler.bsky.social/post…)
Schools SWATing kids based on AI outputs (futurism.com/the-byte/schools-ai-send-police-h…)
LeCun says libraries etc owe him their data (linkedin.com/posts/yann-lecun_every-institutio…)
AGI is when OpenAI makes $100 billion in profits (gizmodo.com/leaked-documents-show-openai-has-a…)
Graphic T for the "AI" age (bsky.app/profile/dynamoe.bsky.social/post/3ldz…)
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Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park (naomipleasurepark.com).
Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.