{"id":871926,"date":"2025-09-10T21:12:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T02:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/10\/the-download-ais-energy-future\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T21:12:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T02:12:02","slug":"the-download-ais-energy-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/10\/the-download-ais-energy-future\/","title":{"rendered":"The Download: AI\u2019s energy future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Plus: Meta has been accused of burying research in VR’s dangers<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n

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This is today’s edition of\u00a0The Download<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.<\/em><\/p>\n

Video: AI and our energy future<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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In May, MIT Technology Review published an unprecedented and comprehensive look at how much energy the AI industry uses\u2014down to a single query. Our reporters and editors traced where AI\u2019s carbon footprint stands now, and where it\u2019s headed, as AI barrels towards billions of daily users.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve just produced a short video to accompany that investigation. You can read the original full story here<\/a>, and check out\u2014and share\u2014 the full video on YouTube here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AI is changing the grid. Could it help more than it harms?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rising popularity of AI is driving an increase in electricity demand so significant it has the potential to reshape the grid. Energy consumption by data centers has gone up by 80% from 2020 to 2025 and is likely to keep growing. Electricity prices are already rising, especially in places where data centers are most concentrated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet many people, especially in Big Tech, argue that AI will be, on balance, a positive force for the grid. They claim that the technology could help get more clean power online faster, run our power system more efficiently, and predict and prevent failures that cause blackouts. How much merit is there to that argument<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\u2014Casey Crownhart<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Three big things we still don\u2019t know about AI\u2019s energy burden<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014James O\u2019Donnell<\/em><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, when my colleague Casey Crownhart and I spent six months researching the climate and energy burden of AI, we came to see one number in particular as our white whale: how much energy the leading AI models, like ChatGPT or Gemini, use up when generating a single response.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We pestered Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft, but each company refused to provide its figure for our article<\/a>. But then this summer, after we published, a strange thing started to happen. They finally started to release the numbers we\u2019d been calling for.<\/p>\n

So with this newfound transparency, is our job complete? Did we finally harpoon our white whale? I reached out to some of our old sources, and some new ones, to find out. Read the full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Google DeepMind has a new way to look inside an AI\u2019s \u201cmind\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know exactly how AI works, or why it works so well. That\u2019s a problem: It could lead us to deploy an AI system in a highly sensitive field like medicine without understanding its critical flaws.But a team at Google DeepMind that studies something called mechanistic interpretability has been working on new ways to let us peer under the hood.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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This is our latest story<\/a> to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we\u2019re publishing each week on Spotify<\/a> and Apple Podcasts<\/a>. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it\u2019s released.<\/p>\n

The must-reads<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve combed the internet to find you today\u2019s most fun\/important\/scary\/fascinating stories about technology.<\/em><\/p>\n

1 Meta suppressed research into the harms young users face in VR<\/strong>
Two former employees told a Senate committee the firm did it to avoid regulatory scrutiny. (WP<\/a> $)<\/p>\n

2 The MAGA movement is full of AI skeptics<\/strong>
But the White House is ditching regulatory obstacles and trying to accelerate AI\u2019s adoption. (FT<\/a> $)<\/p>\n

3 Pfizer says its new covid vaccine boosts immune responses fourfold
<\/strong>If you can get one, that is. (Ars Technica<\/a>)
+ Americans who can\u2019t access a booster are increasingly fearful. <\/em>(The Guardian<\/a>)
+ Vaccine guidance is incredibly confusing these days. <\/em>(Vox<\/a>)
+ Why limited access to covid vaccines isn\u2019t all bad. <\/em>(MIT Technology Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

4 The EU will examine banning social media for under-16s<\/strong>
Following governments across Europe pushing for mandatory age restrictions. (Bloomberg<\/a> $)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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5 RFK Jr is going all-in on ChatGPT<\/strong>
All US health department employees have been given access to the tool. (404 Media<\/a>)
+ Humans may be more likely to believe disinformation generated by AI. <\/em>(MIT Technology Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

6 An \u201cAI-supported\u201d coder won in a man vs machine hackathon\u00a0<\/strong>
But AI tools seem to slow down some experienced human developers. (Wired<\/a> $)
+ The second wave of AI coding is here. <\/em>(MIT Technology Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

7 Mark Zuckerberg is suing Meta<\/strong>
No, not that<\/em> Mark Zuckerberg. (NYT<\/a> $)
+ The bankruptcy lawyer is fed up with being mistaken for him. <\/em>(The Guardian<\/a>)<\/p>\n

8 Apple\u2019s new AirPods can translate languages in real time
<\/strong>Via a robotic voice in your ear. (Ars Technica<\/a>)
+ A new AI translation system for headphones clones multiple voices simultaneously. <\/em>(MIT Technology Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

9 AI is threatening Latin America\u2019s diverse music scenes<\/strong>
Fake songs are flooding streaming platforms and depriving artists of an income. (Rest of World<\/a>)
+ How Pandora fumbled its streaming lead. <\/em>(Fast Company<\/a> $)
+ How to break free of Spotify\u2019s algorithm. <\/em>(MIT Technology Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

10 Auction house Christie\u2019s is axing its digital art division<\/strong>
But don\u2019t worry\u2014it\u2019ll still sell you NFTs. (Cointelegraph<\/a>)
+ I tried to buy an Olive Garden NFT. All I got was heartburn. <\/em>(MIT Technology Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Quote of the day<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf you don\u2019t lay the groundwork culturally for bringing in these stars, you\u2019re going to end up burning a bunch of them out and pissing them off, and a bunch of them are going to quit and you\u2019re going to waste millions of dollars.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014Laszlo Bock, a tech industry adviser and former head of people operations at Google, points out where Meta\u2019s AI division is going wrong to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One more thing<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/figure>\n

<\/a>The $100 billion bet that a postindustrial US city can reinvent itself as a high-tech hub<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a day in late April 2023, a small drilling rig sits at the edge of the scrubby overgrown fields of Syracuse, New York, taking soil samples. It\u2019s the first sign of construction on what could become the largest semiconductor manufacturing facility in the United States.<\/p>\n

The CHIPS and Science Act was widely viewed by industry leaders and politicians as a way to secure supply chains, and make the United States competitive again in semiconductor chip manufacturing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now Syracuse is about to become an economic test of whether, over the next several decades, aggressive government policies\u2014and the massive corporate investments they spur\u2014can both boost the country\u2019s manufacturing prowess and revitalize neglected parts of the country. Read the full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Rhiannon Williams<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plus: Meta has been accused of burying research in VR’s dangers This is today’s edition of\u00a0The Download ,\u00a0our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Video: AI and our energy future In May, MIT Technology Review published an unprecedented and comprehensive look at how much energy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":871927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83232,24097,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-871926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ais","8":"category-download","9":"category-technology"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}