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I spent some time recently reading
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through a big spreadsheet of questions
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submitted by vox's audience members and
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one of them caught my eye it was from
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Cathy a retired school teacher in New
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York City what is the question that you
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wanted us to answer so the question is
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can green energy even begin to handle
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the increased demands that Ai and crypto
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and cloud storage are going to put on
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our Energy System it's a good question
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I've done some reporting on AI but I've
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never thought much of the climate impact
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of all the AI products we're
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increasingly using and all of our
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digital belongings like photos and
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documents and emails getting stockpiled
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in servers around the world they need a
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lot of electricity and the electricity
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has to come from somewhere this is all
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happening while the climate crisis
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demands we use less energy not invent
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new ways to use more of it I think our
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climate goals already feel pretty
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impossible to me but now it's almost
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like we haven't changed the goal poost
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we've changed the entire game so let's
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get to the bottom of
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[Music]
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this within Cathy's big question is a
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more basic one about how much
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electricity our digital lives require at
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first I was thrown off that Kathy
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mentioned things like cloud storage and
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Ai and cryptocurrency in one category
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but then I realized that their
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electricity demands happen at the same
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place data centers ultimately you're
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talking about machines loaded up in
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large facilities who generate
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computations and they need power a lot
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of it they need water uh they need space
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I spoke to Alex D he runs a research
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site called dig Economist where he's dug
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into this exact topic data centers are
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massive often windowless warehouses that
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house thousands of servers that run
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virtually non-stop some of the bigger
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data centers are as big as four football
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fields and use as much electricity at
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any given time as 880,000
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households there are more than 8,000
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data centers around the world and the US
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has more than any other country in 2022
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data centers artificial intelligence and
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cryptocurrencies made up about 2% of
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total Global electricity demand but by
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2026 that number is expected to double
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which is like adding the amount of
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electricity used by the entire country
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of Sweden I'll explain why in a
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minute all right support for this video
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comes from clavo clavo works with
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businesses to turn their data into
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meaningful connections with their
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customers through AI powered email text
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messages and more according to clavio
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over 150,000 Brands trust their data and
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marketing platform to build smarter
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digital relationships with their
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customers during the holiday season and
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Beyond clavio has no editorial influence
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over our work but they make videos like
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this possible learn more at the link
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below that big jump from 2022 to 2026
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six is thanks to Rising cloud storage
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and cryptocurrency electricity demands
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but it's also because of the AI boom We
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Know AI requires a ton of computational
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power but it turns out that the amount
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of electricity it uses is a really
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difficult question to answer AI is a
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huge umbrella term that includes
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everything from basic statistical models
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that detect patterns and data to
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generative AI that creates text and
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images and videos that's the most
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computationally intensive kind the thing
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is the handful of private tech companies
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that dominate the AI field don't really
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disclose how much of their energy use is
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dedicated to AI specifically if you look
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at Google's latest environmental report
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it clearly states they absolutely don't
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want to make a distinction between
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regular workloads and AI specific
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workloads and these company's AI models
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are mostly closed Source meaning no one
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knows exactly how they are built this
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has left some researchers to try to
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piece it together on their own
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researchers looked at an open source
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large language model called Bloom that
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has roughly the same amount of
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parameters as
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gpt3 and found that training something
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like gpt3 required almost 1300 megawatt
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hours of electricity about as much power
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as consumed by 130 homes in the US for 1
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year today large language models like
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GPT 4 have hundreds of billions of
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parameters if not a trillion and
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researchers say that the computational
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power required to train these models is
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expected to double every 9 months so far
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it has mostly been large language models
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driving the AI energy boom of course
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that could change going forward now we
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see AI on the rise for image generation
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and also specifically video generation
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so far we talked about training a large
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language model researchers also looked
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at energy use from people actually using
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it it's been estimated by myself and
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others that a single jet GPT interaction
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would take like 3 Watt hours which is
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comparable to running a low Loom and LED
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bulb for one hour so on itself it
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doesn't sound like a whole lot but of
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course hey it's the volume that matters
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this is 10 times more than a standard
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Google search and of course if you're
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talking about millions or billions of
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interactions the numbers start to stack
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up quickly Alex took another research
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approach by looking at the hardware used
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for AI training and use over 95% of the
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AI industry uses servers made by the
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company NVIDIA they could sell one 1.5
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million of their servers by 2027 he
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multiplied that by the information
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Nvidia publicizes about each of their
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servers energy demand he found that data
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centers devoted to AI alone could
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consume around 100 terawatt hours of
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electricity per year or about the same
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as his home country of the
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Netherlands there's a big part of
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Kathy's question I haven't gotten to yet
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can renewable energy meet the surging
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demand from the world's data centers
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the good news is that using green energy
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is the stated goal of a lot of these
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companies both Google and Microsoft have
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made pledges to be Net Zero by 2030 but
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there are signs that AI is disrupting
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those plants that's because solar and
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wind energy can't produce electricity
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all of the time and these data centers
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need to be running all of the time in
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most cases they will just have a backup
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connection to the power grid which will
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uh have fossil fuels on it it's not just
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that data centers are being built at a r
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that renewable energy infrastructure
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can't keep up with it can take a year to
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build a data center but many more years
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to get a solar or wind farm on an
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electrical grid Google's 2024
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sustainability report showed that the
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company's emissions Rose by 48% from
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2019 to 2023 in large part due to its
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data center energy consumption
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suggesting that integrating AI into
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their products can make reducing their
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emissions challenging there's already
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evidence in the US that coal plants that
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were meant to close are staying open
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because of data centers electricity
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demands and that state utilities are
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building new natural gas plants for the
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same reason but even if these tech
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companies can look good on their
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sustainability reports and get to Net
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Zero they's still a problem the thing is
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that our renewable energy Supply
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globally is limited so if we attributing
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an increasing part of that to the data
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center industry the consequences that
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there's less Renewables available for
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everything else that probably will mean
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that on the whole we will end up using
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more fossil fuels anyway with all this
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context the answer to Cathy's question
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is that for right now we aren't prepared
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for renewable energy to meet the
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increasing demand of the world's data
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centers so what do we do about this as
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users it would be extremely difficult to
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opt out of backing up our data on the
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cloud or even refrain from using AI I
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think AI is embedded in so many things
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that I'm not sure I will have the option
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to say I'm not using it you know I'm out
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researchers like Alex say the best place
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to start is to force more transparency
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from these tech companies in the EU the
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AI act doesn't really Force tech
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companies to disclose anything with
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regard to the environment and that's the
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EU not even talking about the us yet
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which is lagging behind a bit on this
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matter some environmental organizations
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and local communities are calling for
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moratoriums on data centers and some
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researchers have proposed the idea of an
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Energy Efficiency rating so companies
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and consumers can choose data centers
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that are the most sustainable we could
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also hope that the servers and data
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centers will keep getting more energy
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efficient but more than anything this
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issue emphasizes how desperately we need
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to be scaling up renewable energy and
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fast not only to meet the ever
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increasing data center demands but so
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there's plenty of renewable energy to go
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around if you like this video you'll
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