Karen Hao studies on the hypocrisy of the tech big.
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At present, The Atlantic revealed a brand new investigation by contributing author Karen Hao detailing Microsoft’s latest engagements with the oil and fuel industries. Though the tech big has spoken of the potential for AI to remake our world for the higher and stave off local weather change, behind the scenes, it has sought to market the know-how to fossil-fuel firms to help in drilling, amongst different purposes. Karen spoke with 15 present and former Microsoft staff and browse by lots of of inner paperwork for her report.
Basically, it is a story about rigidity—between two factors of view inside Microsoft, and between the supposed promise of a know-how and its precise makes use of within the right here and now. Sustainability advocates inside Microsoft have clashed with management over its pursuit of this enterprise. And though Microsoft has maintained that AI might be used to make fossil-fuel firms extra environment friendly, thereby making their work extra sustainable, critics aren’t so certain. “The concept AI’s local weather advantages will outpace its environmental prices is essentially speculative,” Karen writes, “particularly provided that generative-AI instruments are themselves tremendously resource-hungry. Throughout the subsequent six years, the information facilities required to develop and run the sorts of next-generation AI fashions that Microsoft is investing in might use extra energy than all of India. They are going to be cooled by thousands and thousands upon thousands and thousands of gallons of water. All of the whereas, scientists agree, the world will get hotter, its local weather extra excessive.”
Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI
By Karen Hao
Microsoft executives have been pondering these days in regards to the finish of the world. In a white paper revealed late final 12 months, Brad Smith, the corporate’s vice chair and president, and Melanie Nakagawa, its chief sustainability officer, described a “planetary disaster” that AI might assist remedy. Think about an AI-assisted device that helps cut back meals waste, to call one instance from the doc, or some future know-how that would “expedite decarbonization” by utilizing AI to invent new designs for inexperienced tech.
However as Microsoft makes an attempt to buoy its repute as an AI chief in local weather innovation, the corporate can be promoting its AI to fossil-fuel firms. Lots of of pages of inner paperwork I’ve obtained, plus interviews I’ve carried out over the previous 12 months with 15 present and former staff and executives, present that the tech big has sought to market the know-how to firms akin to ExxonMobil and Chevron as a strong device for locating and creating new oil and fuel reserves and maximizing their manufacturing—all whereas publicly committing to dramatically cut back emissions.
What to Learn Subsequent
P.S.
Final week, I went viral on X and Threads after utilizing generative AI to switch each icon on my cellphone’s residence display screen with a bespoke picture of Kermit the Frog. I wrote in regards to the expertise—and what it reveals about AI—for The Atlantic.
— Damon