The headline “Europe must choose between AI and climate goals, data center lobby says” ran in Politico during the week, and I was impressed by the bluntness of the option, although not surprised that this made headline news considering climate scientists and environmental advocates have been saying variations of this for a while and we are in the middle of a dangerous heatwave. AI uses outrageous amounts of energy, gobbling up newly generated renewable energy and requiring ever increasing amount of gas fired electricity. With emissions reduction targets being missed left, right, and centre in Ireland, we are failing to decarbonise electricity production at a fast enough pace to facilitate a wider weaning off of fossil fuels by allowing renewable electricity to power our heat pumps, EVs and e-bikes. So yes, it is clear we must choose between AI and climate goals, and for me the obvious choice is climate goals.

I had, however, initially missed the concluding few words of the headline which said, “data centre lobby says.” In my naivety, I was interested that the data centres also recognised the incompatibility of unfettered proliferation of data centres to facilitate AI use and a liveable planet. I read on and immediately, depressingly, realised that the choice I assumed was the obvious one was not the one being lobbied for, and that “Europe must prioritize artificial intelligence over its immediate climate ambitions or risk surrendering its tech sovereignty to China.”

Data centre lobbyists recognise that the current heat wave engulfing Europe at the minute – which has already led to deaths – will only get worse if we pursue AI. The thing is, they think that the suffering of others is worth it if AI companies can continue to profit. This dry piece of political news can read like a predictable plot for a supervillain film. The discussion of regulating AI to limit its use globally, or even within the EU, is not even being raised. It is assumed that it is an inevitability that AI will be developed.

Will AI be worth the suffering?

What could possibly be worth the suffering of millions of people though heat domes, droughts, violent storms, flooding and extreme weather events? Is AI some catalyst for the common good which will cancel out the harm that it does and the resources it consumes?

There are, of course, genuinely amazing uses for AI from diagnostics to weather predictions; however, I think we all know a vast amount of AI use is trivial or actively harmful. AI is now apparently a vital tool to plan holidays, it helps with packing lists, and completing assignments students do not want to do. Its obvious harms are many and with the more odious including generation of child porn images, nudification apps, and its use in weapons of war. More insidiously AI helps monetise loneliness by developing AI companion and therapy apps. Technology has created a recipe for loneliness, disconnecting people from one another, creating products so addictive that our time is spent in service to social media apps and not in physical presence of each other. AI, with the promises of an incredibly agreeable campaign in your pocket, claims to have the solution to the problem its cousins have caused.

Ethical or moral considerations

The harm that AI can cause is enormous, both socially and environmentally. It should not be too much to ask that those lobbying for its expansion and developing its capacity have considered the basic environmental and ethical questions what it raises.

For those of us grappling with these questions, Pope Leo’s encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, can offer some direction and moral clarity on the subject of AI and the world in which we live. It “considers what it might mean to safeguard the best parts of being human in the time of artificial intelligence”. While my naivety may have led me to assume that climate is more important that AI expansion, I am not so naive that I don’t know that AI is here and it is here to stay. What I hope comes from this moment is that the physical barriers to AI expansion, the threat to climate goals, and the ethical considerations around its use gives us time to pause and reflect and chart a way forward which is not blindly allowing unfettered expansion.

I just hope that not just my naivety showing again.