Trump’s tax bill seeks to prevent AI regulations. Experts fear a heavy toll on the planet
US Republicans are pushing to pass a major spending bill that includes provisions to prevent states from enacting regulations on artificial intelligence.Such untamed growth in AI will take a heavy toll upon the world’s dangerously overheating climate, experts have warned.About 1bn tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide are set to be emitted in the US just from AI over the next decade if no restraints are placed on the industry’s enormous electricity consumption, according to estimates by researchers at Harvard University and provided to the Guardian.This 10-year timeframe, a period of time in which Republicans want a “pause” of state-level regulations upon AI, will see so much electricity use in data centers for AI purposes that the US will add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than Japan does annually, or three times the yearly total from the UK.The exact amount of emissions will depend on power plant efficiency and how much clean energy will be used in the coming years, but the blocking of regulations will also be a factor, said Gianluca Guidi, visiting scholar at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
“By limiting oversight, it could slow the transition away from fossil fuels and reduce incentives for more energy-efficient AI energy reliance,” Guidi said.“We talk a lot about what AI can do for us, but not nearly enough about what it’s doing to the planet.If we’re serious about using AI to improve human wellbeing, we can’t ignore the growing toll it’s taking on climate stability and public health.”Donald Trump has vowed that the US will become “the world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto” and has set about sweeping aside guardrails around AI development and demolishing rules limiting greenhouse gas pollution.The “big beautiful” reconciliation bill passed by Republicans in the House of Representatives would bar states from adding their own regulations upon AI and the GOP-controlled Senate is poised to pass its own version doing likewise.
Unrestricted AI use is set to deal a sizable blow to efforts to tackle the climate crisis, though, by causing surging electricity use from a US grid still heavily reliant upon fossil fuels such as gas and coal.AI is particularly energy-hungry – one ChatGPT query needs about 10 times as much electricity as a Google search query.Carbon emissions from data centers in the US have tripled since 2018, with an upcoming Harvard research paper finding that the largest “hyperscale” centers now account for 2% of all US electricity use.“AI is going to change our world,” Manu Asthana, chief executive of the PJM Interconnection, the US largest grid, has predicted.Asthana estimated that almost all future increase in electricity demand will come from data centers, adding the equivalent of 20m new homes to the grid in the next five years.
The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.Secure Messaging in the Guardian appThe Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories.Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs.This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said.
If you don't already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu.Select 'Secure Messaging'.SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and postSee our guide at theguardian.com/tips for alternative methods and the pros and cons of each.The explosive growth of AI has, meanwhile, worsened the recent erosion in climate commitments made by big tech companies.
Last year, Google admitted that its greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 48% since 2019 due to its own foray into AI, meaning that “reducing emissions may be challenging” as AI further takes hold,Proponents of AI, and some researchers, have argued that advances in AI will aid the climate fight by increasing efficiencies in grid management and other improvements,Others are more skeptical,“That is just a greenwashing maneuver, quite transparently,” said Alex Hanna, director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute,“There have been some absolutely nonsense things said about this.
Big tech is mortgaging the present for a future that will never come.”While no state has yet placed specific green rules upon AI, they may look to do so given cuts to federal environmental regulations, with state lawmakers urging Congress to rethink the ban.“If we were expecting any rule-making at the federal level around data centers it’s surely off the table now,” said Hanna.“It’s all been quite alarming to see.”Republican lawmakers are undeterred, however.
The proposed moratorium cleared a major hurdle over the weekend when the Senate parliamentarian decided that the proposed ban on state and local regulation of AI can remain in Trump’s tax and spending mega-bill,The Texas senator Ted Cruz, the Republican who chairs the Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation, changed the language to comply with the Byrd Rule, which prohibits “extraneous matters” from being included in such spending bills,The provision now refers to a “temporary pause” on regulation instead of a moratorium,It also includes a $500m addition to a grant program to expand access to broadband internet across the country, preventing states from receiving those funds if they attempt to regulate AI,The proposed AI regulation pause has provoked widespread concern from Democrats.
The Massachusetts senator Ed Markey, a climate hawk, says he has prepared an amendment to strip the “dangerous” provision from the bill.“The rapid development of artificial intelligence is already impacting our environment, raising energy prices for consumers, straining our grid’s ability to keep the lights on, draining local water supplies, spewing toxic pollution in communities, and increasing climate emissions,” Markey told the Guardian.“However, instead of allowing states to protect the public and our planet, Republicans want to ban them from regulating AI for 10 years.It is shortsighted and irresponsible.”The Massachusetts congressman Jake Auchincloss has also called the proposal “a terrible idea and an unpopular idea”.
“I think we have to realize that AI is going to suffuse in rapid order many dimensions of healthcare, media, entertainment, education, and to just proscribe any regulation of AI in any use case for the next decade is unbelievably reckless,” he said.Some Republicans have also come out against the provision, including the Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn and the Missouri senator Josh Hawley.An amendment to remove the pause from the bill would require the support of at least four Republican senators to pass.Hawley is said to be willing to introduce an amendment to remove the provision later this week if it is not eliminated beforehand.Earlier this month, the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene admitted she had missed the provision in the House version of the bill, and that she would not have backed the legislation if she had seen it.
The far-right House Freedom caucus, of which Greene is a member, has also come out against the AI regulation pause.
A clear set of actions is needed to improve NHS maternity services | Letters
This inquiry (Wes Streeting announces investigation into ‘failing’ NHS maternity services, 23 June) needs to get to the heart of why NHS maternity services in England are falling far short of where they need to be.It must leave no stone unturned; there are significant, systemic challenges that affect trusts’ ability to consistently deliver high-quality care, deep-rooted issues with morale and culture within maternity services and, as you highlight (Editorial, 23 June), the “shockingly higher risk of mortality faced by black and Asian mothers” and those from more deprived backgrounds.There have been innumerable recommendations and a regulatory landscape that has become complex, distracting and difficult for trusts to navigate. Trust leaders will welcome proposals to introduce one clear set of actions to improve care across every NHS maternity service.Saffron CorderyDeputy chief executive, NHS Providers After a number of years overseeing maternity and perinatal services at regional level, this proposal frustrates me
‘I don’t think my brain should have gone through that’: five young people on their experience of smartphones as teens
What do people who got – and one who didn’t get – internet-connected phones in their adolescence actually think about the impact they had on them?Debate and anxiety about teen and preteen access to smartphones and social media is raging. One paper has likened smartphones to a “parasite” on our brains, while another study suggests moderate use of social media does not have a harmful effect on young people. In the US more than 100,000 parents have joined an online pledge to delay giving children smartphones until at least the eighth grade and in Australia a ban on under-16s using social media will come into effect in December. Despite all this, OECD figures released in May show 70% of 10-year-olds and 98% of 15-year-olds have internet-connected smartphones.So is giving teenagers smartphones that big a deal?To find out, we asked four twentysomethings who got a smartphone at some point in their teen or preteen years – and one who didn’t
Felicity Whittaker obituary
No one who met my friend Felicity Whittaker, who has died aged 96, could ever forget her. Not the dozens of disadvantaged and often troubled children whom she cared for, nor fellow protesters from Ban the Bomb days to Extinction Rebellion marches. And certainly not the many friends who enjoyed her lively and engaging company in Highgate in north London and later in Bedford.Felicity was born in London to Lydia Bilbrook, an actor, and George Harrison Brown, a journalist. Her parents separated when she was a small child, and she and Lydia moved to Santa Monica Canyon, near Hollywood, where Lydia was part of the British actors’ community and appeared in several films
Triple threat of smoking, drinking and weight ‘puts a million in England at risk of early death’
One in 50 people aged 16 or older in England are at risk of an early death because they smoke, drink too much and are overweight, research has found.This “triple threat” increases the risk of diseases such as cancer and diabetes and in some cases means people dying 20 years earlier than they should, a senior doctor has said.About 1 million people in England are living with that threat, an analysis of the Health Survey for England by the charity Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) has revealed. They are the 2.2% of the population who use tobacco, drink more than 14 units of alcohol a week and are overweight or obese, as judged by having a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or more
As a carer, I’m not special – but sometimes I need to be reminded how important my role is | Natasha Sholl
When I started watching the Disney+ show Dying for Sex, I was wary that the cancer storyline might hit a bit too close to home, after our teenage son was diagnosed with cancer in 2022.The series follows Molly (Michelle Williams) who decides to leave her marriage and pursue sexual pleasure after being diagnosed with stage four cancer. And yet while it’s a difficult watch for obvious reasons, it wasn’t the “cancer stuff” that hit me where it hurts (everywhere); it was the portrayal of Nikki (Jenny Slate), Molly’s best friend, who takes over as carer when Molly leaves her husband. Nikki loses her job, her relationship, her house, her own mental health. And it’s very rare that we see the role of a carer highlighted in pop culture in this way
People dying early of cancer costs UK economy £10.3bn a year, study finds
People dying early of cancer costs the UK economy £10.3bn a year, more than any other health condition, a study has revealed.That is the total cost of the 350,000 years of lost productivity recorded across Britain every year because adults have died prematurely of the disease, according to Cancer Research UK (CRUK).Each early death costs the economy an average of £61,000, according to the charity’s first research into how much the country loses as a result of the growing toll of cancer diagnoses and deaths.In 2021, cancer caused the loss of more productive years of life than any other condition – 350,000 years
Thames Water court case shows there are alternatives to massive infrastructure
‘He left us with nothing’: the British investors swindled by a German property firm
Online hacks to offline heists: crypto leaders on edge amid increasing attacks
Jeff in Venice: seven takeaways from the Bezos-Sánchez wedding
Novak Djokovic confident Wimbledon is his ‘best chance’ of extending slam record
India thrash England by 97 runs in first women’s T20 cricket – as it happened