Last week, Keir Starmer announced plans to use artificial intelligence to drive “incredible change in our country”. Part of the strategy is to create 'AI Growth Zones', including one in Culham, Oxfordshire.
The decision caught the attention of the Guardian's environment correspondent. helena horton.
“They put this growing area in one of the most water-stressed areas in the UK,” Helena says. michael safi. “The Environment Agency has classified the area as suffering from severe water stress, which is why we are building a new reservoir there.
“These data centers not only use a lot of energy, they often use a lot of water,” Helena says. “Servers get very hot because they are processing so much data. To prevent them from overheating, they need to be cooled with water.”
But what about the argument that artificial intelligence can help solve the climate problem, as some AI chiefs have suggested?
“It's good that the world's greatest thinkers are thinking about climate change, but the problem is that it can be used as an excuse not to use the technology we currently have. , many of the technologies we have to build renewable energy, the batteries that are being developed, are pretty cutting edge. They're not as sexy as AI.
“And this is not an argument against AI per se. It's just saying that if we're going to build the data centers needed for AI, we need to be responsible for how we build them.”
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