The Real Danger of AI

I’m back with a new article after taking a few months off.  During that break I finished writing the manuscript for a book, I did some travelling, and I was, and am currently, helping out a friend with his new clean tech start-up.  Truthfully, I had also worked through my list of topics I wanted to write about…until now.  Everyone’s talking about AI and my work with the clean tech start-up opened my eyes to an angle about AI that not a lot of people are talking about, until now.  Enjoy!

The Real Danger of AI

The common conversation regarding Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) revolves around how this new and emerging technology is taking over many jobs at the junior and intermediate levels, how it is a must-have tool for other jobs, how students are using it to “cheat” on their homework, and in the worst case of fear-mongering, how AI will out-smart humans and take over our society (think of the “Terminator” movies).  Other than the most extreme example, these things are already happening and we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. 

Corporations have been investing heavily in their AI strategy. Often they don’t even know what their AI strategy should be and how it should be used in their business, but they feel they have to have AI in their business.  It’s similar to the mid-nineties when the internet was  upon us and everyone felt they had to have a web presence - again they weren't sure what their internet strategy was going to be, but everyone felt the need to be “on the net”.  

The magnificent seven (Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Apple and Tesla) and others are investing billions of dollars in AI, one part of which is through the creation of data centres. A data centre is a large building that houses thousands of computer servers that deliver the functionality of AI and store the mass amounts of data that is used and generated by AI.  The commercial developers of data centres are building this infrastructure in small rural communities with the promise of many jobs being created in the data centres, as well as many temporary construction jobs during the building phase of the data centres. The story being told to the municipalities where these data centres are being located includes the promises of property tax revenue to the municipalities, as well as the need for nearby businesses such as restaurants, bars, and other services for the new workforce employed at the data centres.  The data centre work force will obviously reside in the area which will benefit the region’s existing housing market, as well as driving new build construction of residential housing. How could a municipality refuse an offer from Amazon to house an AI data centre in their community?  Amazon is currently building one of the largest data centres ever on 1,200 acres of cornfield in Indiana. 

How prevalent is this movement to construct AI data centres? In 2024 1,240 permits were filed for data centre construction.  This is four times the number of such permits filed in 2010.  If all these permits are realized as constructed data centres, the annual demand for electricity from these data centres will reach 150-239 Terawatts. In 2024 the entire Province of Ontario consumed 139 Terawatt hours of electricity. In 2023 the entire State of Ohio consumed 150 tera watts of power.  And, in 2023 the entire State of Florida needed 239 terawatts of power.  

That data centre Amazon is building in Indiana? It’s being constructed for AI start-up Anthropic. The AI system is intended to match the human brain.  The facility is expected to consume 2.2 Gigawatts of energy. 2.2 Gigawatts is enough to power a million homes.  Amazon currently has 177 data centres in operation. They collectively consume 38-40 Terawatts of power per year. Microsoft currently has 44 data centres in operation. Google and Meta are estimated to use 10-20 Terawatts of electricity for their data centres. 

By 2028, data centres are estimated to consume 7-12% of all electricity in the United States.  In 2023 this was 4%. In 2018 this was 2%.  

All of this to say that the hidden story behind AI is that while AI may be the greatest disruptive technology innovation mankind has ever seen, and people are advised to embrace it and find a way to incorporate it into their lives, the real cost to our global society from AI is not going to be job losses, or machines taking over humans, it's going to be the drain on our electrical system, and it’s going to be prolonging our dependence on fossil fuels.  For the electrical grid of the United States, 60% of its power comes from fossil fuels. As the statistics cited above show our society’s demand for power is rapidly increasing; this data only covers commercial applications; what about consumers’ need for power? How many devices do we each have? How many devices are there in our homes?  Municipalities are already facing challenges meeting the demands placed on them for power.  

The good news is that despite the mantra of the current US administration to “Drill, Baby Drill”, there is considerable investment being made in alternative sources of energy that will not only address our climate change concerns, but also give us alternate sources of energy to augment the existing electrical grid.  Amazon claims to have invested billions of dollars in solar and wind power projects. It has also invested 500 million dollars on nuclear initiatives in Virginia and Washington St.  Microsoft announced a 10 billion dollar project in green energy infrastructure, including plans to purchase 100% of nuclear energy from the Three-Mile Island nuclear plant if it’s recommissioned.  Google has pledged 20 billion dollars for clean energy initiatives.  The new Canadian government has expressed a strong desire to invest in clean energy alternatives to be responsible global citizens and reduce Canada’s dependency on fossil fuels.  

So, don’t worry about Terminators roaming our city streets, spend time voicing your views on alternative energy sources that ensure when we turn the light switch on, the lights do actually come on!