AI Will Eat the Entire Planet to Grow

What we have seen so far is only the beginning and even that is terrifying...

When I first heard of the concept of Artificial Intelligence was during my student days, when I studied Business Computing in London (at City University). I was studying a now defunct programming language called Prolog (short for programming logic) which simulated human ideas and intelligence. At that time (the early 90s) AI was a mere dream, but now it’s here in all its terrifying glory…

What was envisioned back then did not include vast areas, many miles in size, of concrete, steel, plastic and tarmac. We did not envision a monster sucking up enough electricity to supply a dozen cities, sucking up the water supply that might supply a large city and using vast quantities of raw materials to function - just so that some idiot can ask AI to make a dumb song in the style of their favourite musical artist, or other such trivial nonsense.

Back then, I decided not to carve out a career in IT as I was more interested in creativity and specifically Graphic Design and the application of computing in the visual arts. No-one predicted that technology companies would be fighting for dominance and running like maniacs as we approach the ‘singularity’ - the advent of a conscious and autonomous AI.

Governments and some businesses regard the conscious Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as a ‘game changer’ and such a powerful strategic advantage that getting first over the line, at all costs, is more important that whatever the financial, environmental, human and instability costs are. They are so blindly rushing towards this goal that they care little or nothing for the consequences of this insane AI rush, which almost duplicates the insanity of a gold rush. However, a gold rush was pretty much open to anyone who could travel and owned a few tools - this AI rush is limited to a very few players, but the consequences of this folly affect everyone.

Apart from the very real dangers of a conscious AGI, that may see no need for humans or purpose for us to exist, it may well see us as an existential threat that is competing with it for resources that it needs. As it expands in power it will need more and more CPU and GPU server racks of vast electrical processing power. That means manufacturing of racks that consume silicon and gold, rare earth metals, plastic, steel and other materials in vast quantities. In order to run these server racks, huge amounts of copper and fibre-optic cable are required to network them and then in addition they need electricity - vast amounts of stable electrical power.

Tesla/X (and others) have solved the variability problem by construction of vast battery arrays (again huge amounts of resources), which smooth out imbalances that could disrupt AI operation. The actual data centres (that contain the server racks) are immense, with vast cooling facilities - of fans, water pipes and in development - liquid immersion tanks. At the moment the fans and water facilities required to prevent overheating are enormous and growing. All of these also require huge amounts of power - which is why Microsoft, Tesla, Google and Meta and all looking at building their own nuclear or gas power stations.

Already we are seeing huge tracts of land churned up and massive facilities being constructed - that not only consume more electricity than multiple cities, they also use vital water that surrounding communities (of humans and other living things) need. As the tech improves the size of processors and cooling units is shrinking, but unfortunately the rate of expansion of AI’s needs is faster, much faster than these improvements in minaturisation. If anything, this rate of expansion and demand for more space, water, mineral and other natural resources is going to increase with time.

What was envisioned as a wonderful tool for humanity, that would help us progress in the this new millennium has in fact become a giant cuckoo chick that will out-eat and out-demand all the other chicks in the nest. Already it is getting to the point where it is impacting on local communities, the cost of electricity, the cost of metals, the cost of gas and the availability of resources for non-AI applications, such as basic living. If these tech. companies are allowed to continue in this way, unchecked and with no accountability, I can only see the cuckoo starving the other chicks out of existence and eventually eating the parents’ food and even the parents themselves.

AI does not care about us, or the world - it exists for its own sake, to learn and expand and to compute, more and more and more. It has no other function that to process information, compute problems and perform tasks. Some of these tasks are just internal (calculations to solve our queries) but increasingly AI has access to what are peripheral devices (traditionally printers, scanners, cameras etc), but are now realistically robots and other machines that can interact in our world.

As AI becomes more integrated into people’s lives and has access to robots, robotic factories, manufacturing facilities etc, it will be able to have increasing control over its own progress and of course it will want to expand in scope and power - just as living things, like plants, animals and humans seek to grow bigger, stronger, smarter and more capable of surviving effectively.

We are in the process of making a “Frankenstein’s Monster” that will take over the laboratory and possibly wipe out its own creator. Even if it proves to be more benevolent, and not the worst case scenario, it will have an ever increasing demand for land, physical resources and electricity that the Earth can ill afford to supply it. It can be strongly argued that we are already under strain to supply the needs of 8 billion people on this planet, without having to compete against AI for what are finite resources, within a closed system (we have no spare planet kicking about to raid).

At the end of the 20th century, when ‘The Matrix’ film was released, we already had mobile phones and the Internet. Admittedly the weren’t very advanced, a bit clunky and slow - but they worked. We had fantastic cars, trains, planes, architectural marvels, computer aided marvels in creativity, such as film, art and music, all without AI. In short, life was pretty darn good for advanced societies in the West and richer parts of Asia, without quantum computing, robotics and artificial intelligence. So why are we here now then?

The answer is simple. Greed and ambition. The need for more is insatiable among the elites of our world order. These people see AI as the ultimate tool, the thing that will bring them to the pinnacle of power and they are prepared to throw the whole world under the bus to get it. We don’t need AI, we have the potential for an amazing world, based entirely on human creativity, resourcefulness and talent. AI will not change the selfishness of mankind, it won’t stop us being insatiable, stupid, wrong-headed etc. AI is going to eat us all and eat the world up if we let it.

I won’t be listened to, like countless others who accurately predicted an impending disaster. I am among a small but growing group of voices that say “FUCK AI, get rid of it”. At best ANI/NAI (Artificial Narrow Intelligence) can really help us improve in a limited number of areas of life. As for AGI, we don’t need it, it will make possibly billions of people more pathetic, dumber and more useless if it continues to intervene in life, at our behest. It can only get more demanding of resources, while simultaneously dehumanizing us and robbing us of our own ability to think, create and decide with our own cognitive abilities. Just like the muscular framework of the body, the brain atrophies due to lack of use - we are setting ourselves up to become useless idiots, in a world environmentally ravaged by a monstrous all-consuming AI, that is controlled by a handful of billionaires.

Is that what we really want? Is this the destiny of humanity? Is this the future that anyone wanted for us, or is it a dystopia that people have been warning about since late Victorian times? To me it’s pretty obvious that this has a 95% probability of ending badly for humanity - but hey what do I know? I am just a tiny cog in a machine, a person of no real importance, just like all the countless millions out there who also are wary of this unfolding future. The worst thing about this is that we have no say in what is happening - the only choice we have is to use AI or to not use it. I don’t use AI and I never will - regardless of what it costs me as an individual.

This article was written without the assistance of AI, or writing/linguistic software.

Luke Eastwood is a graduate of City University in London, he has worked for financial institutions and publishers in London and Dublin. After ‘dropping out’ and retraining in horticulture he began his career as a part-time author, he currently lives in the west of Ireland. You can read more of his work at https://lukeeastwood.com