Former Google CEO on AI data centers: "We're not going to hit the climate goals anyway"

midian182

midian182

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A hot potato: There's a lot of concern over the environmental impact stemming from AI's energy requirements. The generative AI revolution has seen more companies pour resources into data centers, which are consuming gigawatts of power. But former Google CEO Eric Schmidt doesn't believe we need to slow down building these facilities as "we're not going to hit the climate goals anyway."

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that power consumption for AI data centers in 2024 will be 10 times higher than it was in 2022. With a single ChatGPT request estimated to consume almost 10 times more power than a Google search, Arm CEO Rene Haas warned earlier this year that AI data centers could require as much as 20 to 25 percent of the entire US power grid by 2030.

McKinsey estimates that data centers are expected to consume 35 gigawatts of power annually by the end of the decade, and that's having an impact on the environment. Four years ago, Microsoft said that it would bring its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2030, but those emissions are actually increasing, something that President Brad Smith says is due to the AI explosion.

Speaking at an AI summit in Washington last week (via Business Insider), Schmidt said there were ways to mitigate the negative effects AI could have on the environment, such as using better batteries and power lines to build data centers. But this ultimately won't be enough.

Schmidt during his Google years

"All of that will be swamped by the enormous needs of this new technology," Schmidt said. "Because it's a universal technology, and because it's the arrival of an alien intelligence […] we may make mistakes with respect to how it's used, but I can assure you that we're not going to get there through conservation."

Schmidt was asked whether it would be possible to meet the growing energy demands of AI without missing conservation targets. He said "we're not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we're not organized to do it."

Schmidt did have some more optimistic predictions for the crowd: "Yes, the needs in this area will be a problem, but I'd rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it and having the problem."

Schmidt, who served as Google CEO from 2001 to 2011 and was executive chairman until 2015, is no stranger to controversial remarks. In August, he said Google is being left behind in the AI race by the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic due to his former company's work-from-home policy.

"Google decided that work-life balance and going home early, and working from home, was more important than winning," Schmidt said at the time. "And the startups, the reason startups work is the people work like hell," he said. He also lamented Google allowing employees to come into work just one day per week, even though Googlers have to be in the office at least three days a week.

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Former Google CEO on AI data centers: "We're not going to hit the climate goals anyway"

 
Excuse me if I don't take advice from billionaires that say 'Let's just all die faster while you peasants work harder to build my private bunker while you live out your mad max days on the outside'

At this point people don't really need a reminder that tech really is just hypercapitalism which is in turn, just a death cult.
 
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Dimitriid said:
Excuse me if I don't take advice from billionaires that say 'Let's just all die faster while you peasants work harder to build my private bunker while you live out your mad max days on the outside'

At this point people don't really need a reminder that tech really is just hypercapitalism which is in turn, just a death cult.
Click to expand...

Excuse me if I don't believe in going banrkrupt for the next n generations sake, while the corpos and billionaires get richer while monetizing the **** out of everything.
NO. F climate change, F activists, F corpos and billionaires, also.
The very existence of billionaires is a sign we don't live in an altruistic, normal and decent society.
WTF will you do with a BILLION?
 
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I don't think we'll be able to fix this by recycling and driving EVs.
It's also not very likely that the government has the capacity to hold their corporate owners accountable anymore.

I keep thinking about that day when my first grade teacher got up in front of the class and essentially told us that we were screwed. I remember she got in huge trouble for that in spite of, or perhaps because of her being absolutely correct thus far.

Don't watch too much TV or read too much news on this stuff. I'm pretty convinced that there is very little the common person can do at this point, no matter what political recruiters tell you. Pick this side, pick that side. Guess what? They both love money more than they love you and they'd never say it to your face.

It's pointless to be depressed though, enjoy what you have and watch the fools burn the rest.
 
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When this stuff comes up, I think about it in the context of the Fermi paradox. And then I wonder if I should feel lucky or unlucky to live so close to the end of humanity. I would say unlucky, because we don't even really get to enjoy the last decades of humanity, instead we are all just wage slaves.
 
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With the right taxes, we can. And we probably will when people are not rich to start with will pay even more
for this beautiful and right goal. Take away their cars, limit the amount of electricity they can use. And that is already like half the job.
 
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JamesBlond said:
DOH, its never been about Climate change, its about control, simple fact.
More ai, less police, more policing, less talking, more spying.
Climate change is a hoax that is man made
Click to expand...

Climate change is as much of a hoax as your mom. It's not. Reading your comment made me wish that both are a hoax but that doesn't diminish the reality of either.

For more than 50 years oil companies such as ExxonMobil have recognized the reality of climate change (there's written evidence for that) - though sadly these corporations also tried suppressing knowledge about it.
Evidence for climate change has only gotten stronger and stronger in those 50 years.
 
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Global warming is no hoax. It's a manufactured crisis that governments, socialists, and Marxists came up to allow them to take control of our economy and lives. Downsize, restrict travel, tax, take away personal freedoms. You need look no further than the above comments. Get the corporations, Take away their cars and electricity, Build expensive and unreliable "green" energy generation while kneecapping our current energy production while the USSR funds green groups all through Europe to shut down nuclear plants so the wind up dependent on Russian natural gas. And now, the biggest proponent of this overhaul of our energy sector, Google, who suppresses any conversation about climate change (while publishing 6 pages of the 70's coming Ice Age being only one magazine, that went viral, rather than the last failed theory), needs our energy for their AI and further entrenching the Google monopoly.

Wake up. The energy emissivity of CO2, the 0.04% makeup of CO2 in the atmosphere, solar activity, all put more than a little doubt into the idea that we've done the whole thing by our existence.
 
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NumberNine said:
I don't think we'll be able to fix this by recycling and driving EVs.
It's also not very likely that the government has the capacity to hold their corporate owners accountable anymore.

I keep thinking about that day when my first grade teacher got up in front of the class and essentially told us that we were screwed. I remember she got in huge trouble for that in spite of, or perhaps because of her being absolutely correct thus far.

Don't watch too much TV or read too much news on this stuff. I'm pretty convinced that there is very little the common person can do at this point, no matter what political recruiters tell you. Pick this side, pick that side. Guess what? They both love money more than they love you and they'd never say it to your face.

It's pointless to be depressed though, enjoy what you have and watch the fools burn the rest.
Click to expand...
Most Western governments, if they were actually comprised of good people, rather than scumbags, would be well able to get the corporate techbro leeches in line. However, unfortunately, it will probably never happen -due to most politicians having their snouts in the trough. Disgusting pigs.
 
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OortCloud said:
You need to get out more - I've never read such a deluded stream of bullsh1t in all my life.
Click to expand...
Oh, and AI is going to save us is rational? We're all doomed unless we go back to the stone age?
Or is it just that I'm not assigning pure motives to the people pushing this stuff "for our own good"?

I'm not saying that this idea was created from malice, but I am saying that it has been amplified and used by politicians and others for their own ends. Who's more delusional? I never said the earth isn't warming, or that it is. My point is that it's been going on for much longer than we've been here, and there are more than enough contradictory facts for me to change t he word theory to ABSOLUTE fact that CO2 is the culprit. You'll have to do better than broken climate models that haven't been right yet.

In the meantime, there are more than enough charlatans lining their pockets with "green credits" and other dubious "cures" to this malady for me to believe not all of this is for our own good. There's a ton of money in "going green", and the CEO's of those companies aren't flying coach..

While we're at it, I may have exaggerated how bad the abuse of this "theory" is, I don't think I resorted to insults and name calling to make my point. But that's exactly how the green crowd operates. Don't debate, shout down an ridicule. Prevent any contrary views and above all, don't address any facts..The most damning of them is that a trace gas in our admosphere will be our doom.

Who's chasing rainbows and unicorns?
 
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SRB said:
Oh, and AI is going to save us is rational? We're all doomed unless we go back to the stone age?
Or is it just that I'm not assigning pure motives to the people pushing this stuff "for our own good"?

I'm not saying that this idea was created from malice, but I am saying that it has been amplified and used by politicians and others for their own ends. Who's more delusional? I never said the earth isn't warming, or that it is. My point is that it's been going on for much longer than we've been here, and there are more than enough contradictory facts for me to change t he word theory to ABSOLUTE fact that CO2 is the culprit. You'll have to do better than broken climate models that haven't been right yet.

In the meantime, there are more than enough charlatans lining their pockets with "green credits" and other dubious "cures" to this malady for me to believe not all of this is for our own good. There's a ton of money in "going green", and the CEO's of those companies aren't flying coach..

While we're at it, I may have exaggerated how bad the abuse of this "theory" is, I don't think I resorted to insults and name calling to make my point. But that's exactly how the green crowd operates. Don't debate, shout down an ridicule. Prevent any contrary views and above all, don't address any facts..The most damning of them is that a trace gas in our admosphere will be our doom.

Who's chasing rainbows and unicorns?
Click to expand...

I get your point, my dude. But rich and powerful, governments and the like abusing a situation for their own gains and man caused climate change are not mutually exclusive.

But I share your outrage. The solutions provided are not optimal for everyone, yet they are forced down our throats like it's the cure for cancer. Take electric cars. They are by far not a solution to anything here in the Czech Republic where I live. We still burn gas and low caloric brown coal for electricity and transfer that into cars. Yet it is presented as one of the things that is going to save us.

We need nuclear power-plants. We need to pour money into the tokamak's of the world, like the British JET and mainly, stop listening to anyone who comes with easy solutions to complex problems, or says extremely asinine stuff like Schmidt, Musk and the like. Don't tell me that the whole of the US had no better candidates to offer than Trump and Kamala.

Anyway, the way forward is to always keep in mind to try and **solve** a problem during our debates and not to try and prove each other wrong at any cost. The latter's just counter-productive and dishonest.
 
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SRB said:
Global warming is no hoax. It's a manufactured crisis that governments, socialists, and Marxists came up to allow them to take control of our economy and lives. Downsize, restrict travel, tax, take away personal freedoms. You need look no further than the above comments. Get the corporations, Take away their cars and electricity, Build expensive and unreliable "green" energy generation while kneecapping our current energy production while the USSR funds green groups all through Europe to shut down nuclear plants so the wind up dependent on Russian natural gas. And now, the biggest proponent of this overhaul of our energy sector, Google, who suppresses any conversation about climate change (while publishing 6 pages of the 70's coming Ice Age being only one magazine, that went viral, rather than the last failed theory), needs our energy for their AI and further entrenching the Google monopoly.

Wake up. The energy emissivity of CO2, the 0.04% makeup of CO2 in the atmosphere, solar activity, all put more than a little doubt into the idea that we've done the whole thing by our existence.
Click to expand...

No but solar cycles exist and we are leaving the last ice age still, meaning temps are rising and there's no changing this.

Next ice age will be around 50.000 years from now.
Last one was 11.500 years ago.

Just like solar cycles, there is glacial cycles, or periods. Temp is not constant. Never was.

What happens right now, would have happened even with no humans on the planet.
Terraforming is needed eventually, but we are not smart enough, yet.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the temperature was 6-9 degrees celcius warner than today.
 
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Mr Majestyk said:
This sort of garbage is regularly posted on techsplot. Every single article that mentions climate is hijacked. It's like being on wccftech.
Click to expand...

I think Techspot 'No politics, just tech' stance (Which is in an of itself, a political position by the way) it's just insufficient: Climate change has enough scientific consensus and tech involved it should be considered an anti-tech position to post climate denying stuff.

The reason why we're facing such disasters as the one about to hit Tampa Bay in 24 hours it's precisely because there's just so many 'Apolitical' parties that have the luxury of not caring and 'remaining neutral' and letting this stuff fester and propagate on their platforms.
 
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When you think there is still a semblance of intelligence left on this poor planet, reading this forum convinces you otherwise. The true and wilful ignorance rears its reptilian head the moment Climate Change is mentioned and they call it a "hoax".

As if the millions of world-wide scientists got together and wanted to create a hoax...and yet, it seems it's easier for some brains to believe oil and coal company lawyers than scientists in 2024!

They should really rename this "tech" place to: "The Easily Triggered by Climate Change Ostriches Forum"
 
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Shaitan said:
Excuse me if I don't believe in going banrkrupt for the next n generations sake, while the corpos and billionaires get richer while monetizing the **** out of everything.
Click to expand...
The answer is not to destroy future generations, the answer is to address the inequity you're seeing.

If you're American, voting in November is one step that can be taken.
 
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NumberNine said:
I don't think we'll be able to fix this by recycling and driving EVs.
It's also not very likely that the government has the capacity to hold their corporate owners accountable anymore.

I keep thinking about that day when my first grade teacher got up in front of the class and essentially told us that we were screwed. I remember she got in huge trouble for that in spite of, or perhaps because of her being absolutely correct thus far.
Click to expand...
It's debatable how right the defeatist position is. If even keeping 20% of humans alive is all that's possible, that's better than nothing.

And we can do better than that.
 
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The old adage about the inverse relationship between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain, IMO, should be updated for modern times as it has become the inverse ratio of the size of the fortune to the size of the brain.
 
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