Ep. 28: Are you subsidizing AI's electricity costs?
with technology & climate journalist, Lindsay Muscato
What does it actually cost to live with AI? In this episode, I’m joined by technology and climate journalist Lindsay Muscato to explore an urgent but sometimes overlooked story: the impact of AI on the environment. Every chatbot query, every cloud-stored photo, every AI system we test requires significant energy. And to meet that demand, data centers are rapidly expanding across America. But with their particular concentration in rural areas, certain communities are bearing most of the brunt. Their energy bills spike and their local municipalities run the risk of being strained. In this episode, we explore how some communities are pushing back against this data center expansion, and what it will take to mitigate this infrastructure and energy crisis that AI is supercharging.
About Lindsay Muscato:
Lindsay Muscato is an independent journalist, formerly a senior editor at TIME and editor at MIT Technology Review, who focuses on the intersection of technology and public policy, with special attention on climate. Her work has appeared in outlets nationally and internationally.
