By JENNIFER McDERMOTT and LINLEY SANDERS
As the United States rapidly builds massive data centers for the development of artificial intelligence, many Americans are concerned about the environmental impact.
Worries about how AI will affect the environment surpass concerns about other industries that worsen climate change, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.
The results of the poll, conducted in September, suggest that as AI reshapes work, communication and culture, it’s also sparking anxieties about how the growing energy demands could further harm the environment.
It takes massive amounts of electricity to power AI. Electricity consumption from data centers is set to more than double globally by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. The United States accounts for by far the largest share of the projected increase, followed by China. In many places, the electricity for data centers will come from power plants that burn coal, oil and natural gas. Burning these fossil fuels for electricity emits carbon dioxide, trapping heat in the atmosphere and warming the planet.
The energy needs are so large that major technology companies are investing in next-generation nuclear technology, which can produce electricity without emissions, and quietly scaling back their own goals to cut carbon pollution.
Aidan Collins, a 26-year-old Democrat in New York, said in his view, AI uses an “absurd amount” of energy.
“Using all this energy and contributing to climate change in a bad way, it all just seems very awful to me,” he said.
More worries about AI’s environmental impact than meat and aviation
President Donald Trump unveiled a plan this summer for America’s “global dominance” in artificial intelligence, which included cutting back environmental regulations to speed up the construction of AI supercomputers. The U.S. Department of Energy has identified federal sites where tech companies could build data centers to power AI. Trump, a Republican, has made sweeping strides to prioritize fossil fuels for electricity generation and hinder renewable energy projects.
About 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the environmental impacts of AI. That’s higher than the share of Americans who are highly concerned about the environmental impact of the cryptocurrency, meat production and air travel industries, all of which contribute to climate change and cause environmental harm. Bitcoin mining uses enormous amounts of electricity. Livestock produce methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. And when airplanes burn jet fuel, it releases carbon dioxide.
Like Collins, several Americans said in follow-up interviews that they are worried about the energy and water required to power AI. Data centers need a tremendous amount of water to keep cool. Some communities strongly oppose data centers because they demand so much energy and water.
Aaron Gunnoe, a 29-year-old independent in Ohio, said he’s very concerned about the increasing electricity demand, when much of it is supplied by fossil fuels.
“They haven’t done anything in the way of offsetting it cleanly,” he said. “They just keep building more and more.”