Democrats Are Embracing AI for the Dumbest Possible Reason
Schmidt didn’t offer many specifics in attempting to describe why rapidly multiplying energy supply by 100 would be anything other than sum-negative for the planet. “The needs of our industry are so great that we cannot cut down any of the sources of energy right now,” he said. “The intelligence revolution—the ability to do planning and discovery—will allow us as Americans to develop new materials, new energy sources, and so forth because of the AI data centers. Our core argument is: Invest in the way we can now because the future will be so much cleaner and more efficient as a result of these algorithms.”
That’s gobbledygook, and in keeping with the kind of nonsense AI enthusiasts tend to spout whenever asked about why their products demand a new “social contract” and hundreds of nuclear power plants’ worth of energy. Democrats are right to raise concerns about privacy and energy affordability, but they should be asking more fundamental questions: What, concretely, will all this AI actually do? Does that justify the fantastical amounts of electricity its boosters say is needed? And if AI is so essential to U.S. economic prosperity, then why is the industry so bad at making money?
Writers such as Ed Zitron, Edward Ongweso Jr., Max Read, and other AI critics have diligently chronicled reasons for skepticism on all of these fronts, easily accessible to any congressional staffers looking to inform or feed questions to their members. As to whether AI really needs this much energy, it’s worth noting that Schmidt gave his testimony as Microsoft announced it was “slowing or pausing” a portion of its planned data construction, including a $1 billion project in Ohio. There’s nothing inevitable about all that demand Schmidt and others say is coming, and plenty of cracks starting to show. Companies are trying to build an aura of inevitability around the scary and/or exciting prospect of “artificial general intelligence,” which—depending on who you talk to about it—can refer either to a godlike supercomputer or a replacement for low- and mid-level white-collar jobs. Whatever AGI is, and whenever it “happens,” they argue, the U.S. should beat China to it; besting China, of course—and averting some ill-defined calamity—will require generous support from the U.S. government in the form of cheap land, regulatory relief, and more. “The risk” of China outpacing the U.S. on AI, Schmidt warned in his opening statement, “includes not only competition but also potential I.P. theft or modification of systems and the possibility of China achieving a monopoly leadership position or initiating preparatory attacks.”