US slows plans to retire coal plants because of AI power usage

lol, people were worried about AI developing an uncontrollable “Skynet” and killing us with our own weapons.

Instead it’s just going to kill us quicker with profits and environmental collapse.

Paywall but upvoted for the existential nightmare of a headline.

Two people in another thread were trying to claim to me that AI is not contributing to a massive ecological disaster involving both energy and water use because "Americans driving cars contribute more." As if that would excuse the energy use even if it is true, and I'm not sure it will be true indefinitely even if it is now.

And then I would remind them about the water part and they'd go, "okay, well, that's a problem in some places, but the technology holds so much promise!"

Two excerpts from the article that hurt my soul:

"You can’t replace the fossil plants fast enough to meet the demand,” said Joe Craft, chief executive of Alliance Resource Partners, one of the largest US coal producers. “In order to be a first mover on AI, we’re going to need to embrace maintaining what we have.”

and

"We need more energy, not less,” Indiana’s Republican governor, Eric Holcomb, told the Financial Times. “We absolutely as Americans can’t afford to lose the AI war.”

Yikes.