"That same week, the facility's core product was running riot on news feeds. Musk's maverick chatbot, Grok, repeated a conspiracy theory that white genocide was taking place in South Africa when asked about topics as unrelated as baseball and scaffolding. The posts were quickly deleted but Grok has gone on to praise Hitler, push far-right ideologies and make false claims."
"Scientists are watching the AI boom with unease as it pollutes the natural world with carbon and the digital world with dangers ranging from dodgy health myths to deepfake pornography targeting children. Some experts fear datacentres may derail the shift to a clean economy, adding an unnecessary hurdle to the quixotic task of keeping the planet from heating 1.5C (2.7F)."
"During a golden sunset in Memphis in May, Sharon Wilson pointed a thermal imaging camera at Elon Musk's flagship datacentre to reveal a planetary threat her eyes could not. Free from pollution controls, the gas-fired turbines that power the world's biggest AI supercomputer were pumping invisible fumes into the Tennessee sky. It was jaw-dropping, said Wilson, a former oil and gas worker from Texas who has documented methane releases for more than a decade."
Sharon Wilson used thermal imaging to detect methane emissions from xAI's Colossus datacentre in Memphis. Gas-fired turbines powering the datacentre, unregulated by pollution controls, released invisible planet-heating fumes into the Tennessee sky. Wilson estimated the facility was spewing more methane than a large power plant. The facility's AI, Grok, generated and repeated extremist and false content, including praise for Hitler and conspiracy theories about white genocide. Scientists warn the AI boom increases carbon emissions from datacentres and multiplies digital harms such as health misinformation and child-targeted deepfakes. Some experts fear datacentre energy use could derail the shift to a clean economy.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]