Contributor(s): Professor Nick Couldry, Dr Eugenie Dugoua, Ceara Carney | Artificial intelligence is transforming the world around us, offering increased productivity and promising to help tackle difficult problems like global warming.

But behind the scenes, its environmental costs are mounting. From massive energy use to vast quantities of water required to cool data centres, AI’s footprint is growing fast. So, in an age of water scarcity and climate crisis, can we justify this technological boom?

In this episode of LSE iQ, Anna Bevan asks: Is AI destroying the planet?

She travels to a data centre in Slough to find out exactly how data centres work, and speaks to Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at LSE; Eugenie Dugoua, Assistant Professor in Environmental Economics at LSE; and Ceara Carney, an actor and climate activist. 

This episode explores the AI sustainability paradox: can AI be both a climate solution and a climate problem? And discusses surprising ways AI is being used for good, such as catching poachers in the Serengeti.

Research

Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight it, Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias

The Space of the World: can Human Solidarity Survive Social Media and What if it Can't? Nick Couldry

Induced innovation, inventors and the energy transition, Eugenie Dugoua and Todd D. Gerarden

Directed technological change and general purpose technologies: can AI accelerate clean energy innovation? Pia Andres, Eugenie Dugoua and Marion Dumas 

Could artificial intelligence deliver a green transition? Marion Dumas

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