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Is AI Really About to Devour All Our Energy?
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Is AI Really About to Devour All Our Energy?

There is precedent for this panic.

Robinson Meyer
Heatmap, 2024
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In the late 1990s, it was all about the internet and data centers; now it’s about the proliferation of electric vehicles, smartphones, and generative AI. While all these certainly create power demand, questions arise regarding the scale of the demand and how best to meet it. Journalist Robinson Meyer delves into technology’s energy-related issues and notes that overblown predictions from policymakers, tech CEOs, and the media risk creating a false sense of alarm that could potentially exacerbate climate change and raise energy costs.

Summary

The angst over technology’s potential to decimate America’s energy system is not new.

In the 1990s, the advent of the internet and of computers stoked fears about US energy capacity. At the time, some said that information technology was responsible for more than 10% of America’s power demand. Others, including major investment banks, extrapolated from that figure to claim that the digital economy would consume half of America’s electricity distribution within the decade.

Generative artificial intelligence’s proponents — among them the nation’s largest utilities and the International Energy Agency — and its critics — environmental groups...

About the Author

A former staff writer at The Atlantic, Robinson Meyer is the founding chief executive editor of Heatmap.

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