* Data centers powering artificial intelligence could use more electricity than entire cities [0]
* Google’s emissions up 51% as AI electricity demand derails efforts to go green [1]
* AI is poised to drive 160% increase in data center power demand [2]
It is a doomsday cult in the most literal sense.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/23/data-centers-powering-ai-cou...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/27/google-em...
[2] https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/AI-poised-to-...
The good news is that that usage is creating high cost for them and an incentive to do something about that. Which is why MS, Amazon, etc. are very interested in investing in e.g. nuclear and renewables.
I'm not too worried about the long term impact of increased power usage by data centers. I think it's more interesting to focus on the big emitters: domestic and industrial heating, shipping, road transport, aviation, construction, etc. There is some movement there but it's very slow. Fixing that should increase demands on power grids and that's a good thing because investments are needed to make that better and cleaner and the most viable technical path to doing that is via renewables.
And it's not a zero sum game. AI delivers economical benefits as well. Including potential savings in labor, efficiency gains, and indeed power usage. I don't think becoming Luddites is really a realistic path. Not going to happen and quite pointless and ineffective to be calling for that. AI is happening and there's going to be more of it. Wasting energy on trying to put that cat back in the bag it escaped from is a mission impossible.