Google Accused of Felling 300 Hectares of Forest for a Finnish Data Centre
woodcentral.com.auWhere is the net benefit to society through all this, one asks? I'm not a luddite but news like this makes me feel ill. Turning the planet into one big AI data center just doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies.
An AI-assisted invention that solves climate change would pay some pretty good dividends, i think.
The solution exists. It's just a matter of priorities.
Sort of. In many cases the solutions are cheaper and easier than the actions that cause climate change, but certain people oppose progress for political reasons -- and those political reasons are no deeper than "my opponents like it so I'm against it."
Moreover, its nature is societal, we don't need to wait for a technical one - if people were willing to adjust the way they live. I'm not sure we will be able to pull off the timing for an energy transition, depending on how far we overshoot. At a point not far past 1.5c, you enter hothouse earth and amplification.
A decade from now the AI-assisted invention for solving climate change will be: "Plant more forests."
After several trillion spent on AI, we're still waiting on AI to assist with anything more complicated building stock websites.