A Former Tech Worker Questions the Environmental Costs of AI
Are we really willing to sacrifice the planet for this technology?
NOTE: This post represents my personal views about AI in my capacity as a private individual. It does not represent the views of any of my previous or current employers or promote their products or services.
The announcement came as a surprise to me, though maybe it shouldn’t have.
The company I used to work for was pivoting away from its initial flagship product. We would still have and support the product, of course, it was (and is) used by millions of people every day. But it wouldn’t be our main focus anymore.
Instead, we were now going to focus on an “integrated, AI-powered” product.
There it was. AI.
Yet another tech buzzword. A fad like crypto, bitcoin, VR, and any number of other so-called innovations that dominated headlines for a day and have now been relegated to the growing graveyard of failed tech experiments.
Unfortunately, the costs of this fad are myriad and damaging to nearly everyone, especially those who can least afford them.
