Feeding the monster. . .

Over the years I have commented here and there on the seemingly insatiable appetite for technology for electrical power.  It should not surprise the reader of my interest here.  Some of this was before AI became a force in the market.  All of us should be concerned now that the required diet of AI in its various forms requires.  The electrical grid is not the only problem but the ability to feed that grid when you have some with requirements so out of proportion with the whole.

The truth is that AI in all its various incarnations demands the US alone bring an unbelievably massive 100 gigawatts a year online simply to feed the AI boom.  Now, it is worth remembering that AI has yet to turn a profit for anyone.  At this point, it is only the hope or guess that the demand for electric power which AI will need should be worth the investment.  We have no guarantee.  It is not even sure that such a demand for power is generous in its estimate and it may turn out to be conservative and well shy of what the hunger will be by this small part of the whole of US industrial demand.  Indeed, some have insisted that a third of that total is what is required simply for AI to remain on idle -- much less for the demand once it gets up to speed.

Let me put this into perspective. This number, 100 gigawatts, would fuel some 100 million households!  That is more than six times the demand for the homes in California.  Data centers and AI centers are not exactly welcome neighbors in a world already accustomed to power outages and brown outs because of demand greater than we can generate.  We have a Google data center where I live and I do not know if the approval for the server farm was accompanied by any real estimate of what it would cost in power to keep the thing going.  I suspect I am not wrong when it comes to other places where such centers have been built.  In fact, the purveyors of such data centers and server farms are paying for power generators to be built for their exclusive use.  They are contracting for all the power these sources might provide.  

We are not competing with China or anyone else here.  Only a fool would suggest that China is ahead of the US in power generation.  We are not in global competition as much as we are fighting within ourselves over the power demands of AI and the server farms within our own borders and to satisfy our own demands.  Only then can we look to the impact of all of this upon the political and societal structures across the world.  No, my concern is the morality of such a pursuit.  If AI threatens to steal away many jobs and reshape the marketplace and occupational life of individuals and families, is it morally right and good for us to divert so much power to something which has warned us already that things will never be the same again?  This is where the Church must enter into the argument.  What is good and right and salutary?  AI simply as a massive consumer of power resources, quite apart from what AI does or says, must be judged within the context of what is good and right and beneficial to society as a whole, including those most vulnerable within that society.  Can we feed the monster without starving the children and will feeding the monster provide us with enough tangible benefit to justify the sacrifice?  Obviously, this is beyond my pay grade but it should not be far from the agenda of the churches and their ministers going forward.  It is one thing, often easier, to give up the resources of others while preserving your own but it is quite another to surrender your own.  To put it in farm terms, it is one thing to contribute an egg to the table but quite another to provide the bacon.