Karen Hao stories on the hypocrisy of the tech big.
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Immediately, The Atlantic printed 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 expertise to fossil-fuel firms to assist in drilling, amongst different functions. Karen spoke with 15 present and former Microsoft staff and skim by means of tons of of inner paperwork for her report.
Essentially, it is a story about pressure—between two factors of view inside Microsoft, and between the supposed promise of a expertise 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 basically speculative,” Karen writes, “particularly provided that generative-AI instruments are themselves tremendously resource-hungry. Inside 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 tens of millions upon tens of millions 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 recently in regards to the finish of the world. In a white paper printed 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 clear up. Think about an AI-assisted instrument that helps scale back meals waste, to call one instance from the doc, or some future expertise that might “expedite decarbonization” by utilizing AI to invent new designs for inexperienced tech.
However as Microsoft makes an attempt to buoy its popularity as an AI chief in local weather innovation, the corporate can also be promoting its AI to fossil-fuel firms. Lots of of pages of inner paperwork I’ve obtained, plus interviews I’ve performed over the previous 12 months with 15 present and former staff and executives, present that the tech big has sought to market the expertise to firms corresponding to ExxonMobil and Chevron as a robust instrument for locating and growing new oil and fuel reserves and maximizing their manufacturing—all whereas publicly committing to dramatically scale back emissions.
What to Learn Subsequent
P.S.
Final week, I went viral on X and Threads after utilizing generative AI to exchange each icon on my cellphone’s residence display 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
