Toward liberal environmentalism
The underlying normative claim of my environmental writing
TechPhilosophy
Andy Masley.
Andy Masley on AI systems, data centers, and the philosophical stakes of technology.
Recent essays
30 of 42A conversation with my city planner friend Curtis on a recent data center moratorium in Holyoke MA
I recorded a conversation with my friend Curtis who until a few years ago was a city planner in Holyoke MA and had a lot of thoughts on a recent data center moratorium there.
AI art as curation
Asking whether AI art involves real creativity mostly misses what's interesting about it
What does it mean for AI to be democratic?
Some pushback on a specific fuzzy idea with some ominous implications
A plug for a tool I made to show how little most current AI chatbots add to your emissions and water use, with citations
Take this and share it, you don't need to mention me
A simple trick to fix the data center debate
Remove the status quo bias by asking "would we spend this much in tax revenue to avoid the externalities of the data center?"
Why I think panic about local impacts of data centers is just a panic
A request for counter examples
I think I figured out exactly how the “AI uses a bottle of water per prompt” miscalculation happened
Looks like it's roughly 50-250x too high
A history of the data center panic - part 1
Pre-ChatGPT and the creation of common wisdom
A crash course on US air pollution
Data centers and air pollution - part 1
Let's not compare data center heat exhaust to nuclear bombs
Why dropping hundreds of nuclear bombs on Washington DC every day is pretty normal
Data center land use issues are fake
We have plenty of land, data centers provide more revenue per unit area than any other building, and we should have way less farmland
To be clear, I do understand how sound works
Replying to a criticism of my last post
Contra Benn Jordan, data center (and all) sub-audible infrasound issues are fake
One of the most popular videos made about data centers ever is a complete moment-by-moment disaster
Training AI models doesn't emit that much
If we just make reasonable comparisons instead of crazy ones
What's blocking Waymo in DC and how can we fix it?
The very late DDOT report is only part of the story
Data centers' heat exhaust is not raising the land temperature around where they're built
A terrible paper and even worse interpretation is threatening to become common wisdom
A call for more specific and numerate climate communication
There's too much low-hanging fruit going unpicked, and it's relatively easy to pick
AI can obviously create new knowledge
But maybe not new concepts
AI can obviously create new knowledge
But maybe not new concepts
Empire of AI is wildly misleading about AI water use
And the media environment that didn't catch this is getting this issue wrong
Empire of AI is wildly misleading about AI water use
And the media environment that didn't catch this is getting this issue wrong
A short summary of my argument that using ChatGPT isn't bad for the environment
To share with anyone still worried
A short summary of my argument that using ChatGPT isn't bad for the environment
To share with anyone still worried
The lump of cognition fallacy
The extended mind as the advance of civilization
The lump of cognition fallacy
The extended mind as the advance of civilization
A list of other catastrophes that are probably fake
Adding to this over time
It's much easier to hold computers accountable than it is to hold humans accountable
Computers live in a totalitarian surveillance state
Data centers and low social trust
Why I was so compelled to post a lot about data centers
A quick plug for my recent podcast appearance
On Conspicuous Cognition, thanks Dan and Henry!