Microsoft Pushes AI For Climate Solutions While Marketing To Oil Giants (theatlantic.com) 26
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft executives have been thinking lately about the end of the world. In a white paper published late last year, Brad Smith, the company's vice chair and president, and Melanie Nakagawa, its chief sustainability officer, described a "planetary crisis" that AI could help solve. Imagine an AI-assisted tool that helps reduce food waste, to name one example from the document, or some future technology that could "expedite decarbonization" by using AI to invent new designs for green tech.
But as Microsoft attempts to buoy its reputation as an AI leader in climate innovation, the company is also selling its AI to fossil-fuel companies. Hundreds of pages of internal documents I've obtained, plus interviews I've conducted over the past year with 15 current and former employees and executives, show that the tech giant has sought to market the technology to companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron as a powerful tool for finding and developing new oil and gas reserves and maximizing their production -- all while publicly committing to dramatically reduce emissions.
Although tech companies have long done business with the fossil-fuel industry, Microsoft's case is notable. It demonstrates how the AI boom contributes to one of the most pressing issues facing our planet today -- despite the fact that the technology is often lauded for its supposed potential to improve our world, as when Sam Altman testified to Congress that it could address issues such as "climate change and curing cancer." These deals also show how Microsoft can use the vagaries of AI to talk out of both sides of its mouth, courting the fossil-fuel industry while asserting its environmental bona fides. (Many of the documents I viewed have been submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a whistleblower complaint alleging that the company has omitted from public disclosures "the serious climate and environmental harms caused by the technology it provides to the fossil fuel industry," arguing that the information is of material and financial importance to investors.
But as Microsoft attempts to buoy its reputation as an AI leader in climate innovation, the company is also selling its AI to fossil-fuel companies. Hundreds of pages of internal documents I've obtained, plus interviews I've conducted over the past year with 15 current and former employees and executives, show that the tech giant has sought to market the technology to companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron as a powerful tool for finding and developing new oil and gas reserves and maximizing their production -- all while publicly committing to dramatically reduce emissions.
Although tech companies have long done business with the fossil-fuel industry, Microsoft's case is notable. It demonstrates how the AI boom contributes to one of the most pressing issues facing our planet today -- despite the fact that the technology is often lauded for its supposed potential to improve our world, as when Sam Altman testified to Congress that it could address issues such as "climate change and curing cancer." These deals also show how Microsoft can use the vagaries of AI to talk out of both sides of its mouth, courting the fossil-fuel industry while asserting its environmental bona fides. (Many of the documents I viewed have been submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a whistleblower complaint alleging that the company has omitted from public disclosures "the serious climate and environmental harms caused by the technology it provides to the fossil fuel industry," arguing that the information is of material and financial importance to investors.
unplug your data center (Score:5, Insightful)
Straining the electrical grid for a useless fad isn't climate conscious.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeap!
Brad Smith, the company's vice chair and president, and Melanie Nakagawa, its chief sustainability officer, described a "planetary crisis" that AI could help solve.
Maybe more like create a crisis or at least make it worse. What are they smoking? Or, maybe it's pure evil and they know they are lying. AI and climate sure sounds weird in the same sentence in this context.
it's a cookbook! (Score:2)
AI : "Solution to global warming = get rid of those pesky humans, they're the cause of 100% of industrial CO2 emissions."
FUD - Profits + false advertising == green (Score:2)
Does anyone remotely believe that the mountains of 'green is good' and 'we are green' advertising from big tech?
Big tech's major source of revenue includes the biggest polluters: 1) government, 2) natural resource extraction industry, 3) transportation industry
The U.S. federal government is the single largest consumer in the world, spending more than $690 billion on products and services each year.
https://www.epa.gov/greenerpro... [epa.gov]
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And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: And? (Score:2)
Except you missed the part where providing AI means using lots of resources. There's nothing inconsistent here, just a lot of lies, which has always been the big business SOP in general and the Microsoft MO in particular.
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I think what bothers people more is the hypocrisy. But I don't really see hypocrisy. I see a very free market company that will sell to anybody who will buy. When they say we (governments) need to make a change, they are going against their own interest. But until that happens, they're gonna contract with oil companies.
It's not the most principled stance, but it's not hypocrisy either.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really see hypocrisy
Maybe you need to get your eyes checked?
MS says they're committed to reducing emissions and suggests their AI could "expedite decarbonization" but their AI uses up huge amounts of power and they're marketing it to oil and gas companies as a way to find more fossil fuel deposits.
Saying you're committed to something in public while privately undermining it in the name of profit is the definition of hypocrisy.
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I think you are reading this differently than it's meant. If they say "we are committed", it probably means they dedicated a team to it, and they send out some equivalent of corporate memos to remind the rest of the employees that it's a value they are supposed to be furthering. They aren't actually changing their actions except in the ways the team comes up with, and those ways are laughably small. Less "pivot to manufacturing windmills" and more "give a discount to manufacturers that ship their computers
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and they're marketing it to oil and gas companies as a way to find more fossil fuel deposits.
AI is just a tool. You seem to be living in this fantasy that AI is somehow directly resulting in more fossil fuels being exploited, instead of just being the tool of the day in use. Even the power issue is silly, here have a look at this list. https://top500.org/ [top500.org] Know what's interesting about this list? Look at number 24, 29, 37, 60
Eni, Exxon Mobil, Saudi Aramco, Total, and that's just the ones who bothered publishing (I know of an oil company with a more powerful supercomputer than Eni who isn't on the li
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Is this supposed to be some sort of huge 'gotcha' moment? Are people really incapable of recognizing that multiple things can be true at once? "We think we need to taper off fossil fuels" and "we cannot simply stop next Tuesday" are both correct.
"We think we need to taper off fossil fuels" and "foregoing the use of energy intensive LLMs is a step towards that goal" are also both correct. So the question comes down to whether you believe that LLMs are likely either to "expedite decarbonization", or to otherwise cause a net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Do you believe that? I certainly don't.
Translation - AI-powered greenwashing (Score:5, Insightful)
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ai will make oil burn cleaner and clean coal will be pure oxygen
we will be using 100% clean nuclear for this ai innovation.
Why can't AI be used for multiple applications (Score:2)
I don't understand the problem here. AI is a tool that can be used for lots of things, just like many other tools.
You know I'm beginning to think (Score:2)
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Answer right in front of them (Score:2)
So... (Score:2)
And? What do you mean but? (Score:2)
The "fossil fuels company" I work for makes heavy use of AI as well. We recently deployed some from Palantir to optimise windfarm production, and to predict power load balancing on electrolysers to comply with the green energy requirements being rolled out in Europe and USA > effectively proving we are only using green energy to sell green hydrogen. Even where we use AI for oil we do so in the name of improved efficiency, and cost reduction (which typically implies waste / energy reduction).
The idea that
The solution... (Score:2)
Simple. Kill all humans.
It's just good business (Score:2)
If you are going to profit from selling climate solutions, you're going to want a steady supply of climate problems.