In this episode of I’ve Got Questions, I sit down with leading AI scholar Kate Crawford, professor at USC, and author of award-winning Atlas of AI to examine the environmental, social, and ethical costs of artificial intelligence.
We break down how AI is an extension of earth’s resources with giant data centers that use huge amounts of electricity, water, and minerals. We discuss how this is putting pressure on the planet and on communities that often go unseen.
Kate breaks down how the global “AI race” between countries is creating new risks and what it will take from us to build technology that helps both people and the planet.
0:00 – Introduction
1:00 – Why Kate Crawford Says AI Isn’t “Virtual” — It’s Industrial
2:30 – The Hidden Environmental Cost of AI Models
4:05 – How AI Competes with Humans for Survival Resources
6:00 – Data Centers, Fossil Fuels, and Real-World Harm to Communities
8:00 – The Illusion of “Efficiency” and the Jevons Paradox
10:30 – How Behavioral Change Fuels the AI Explosion
12:00 – What Happens If We Don’t Change How We Build AI
14:00 – Why China’s Energy Strategy Is Beating the U.S.
16:00 – The False Choice: National Security or the Planet
18:00 – Shifting Responsibility from Individuals to Systems
20:00 – The Structural Design Failure Behind AI’s Carbon Footprint
22:00 – How Race Dynamics and Geopolitics Drive Destructive AI Growth
24:00 – Why Concentrated AI Power Threatens Democracy
26:00 – Nationalism, Cooperation, and the Future of Global AI Policy
28:00 – Why Technology Is Never Neutral
30:00 – The Myths and Realities of “AI for Climate”
32:00 – What Smaller, Efficient AI Could Look Like
33:00 – The Billionaire Empire Behind the AI Revolution
35:00 – AI as the Continuation of Historical Power Structures
38:00 – The Long Arc of Empires and Industrial Transformations
39:30 – When Private Tech Companies Rival Nation States
41:00 – The Next Three Years: The Most Consequential in AI History
43:00 – The Rising Threat of AI-Driven Misinformation
44:00 – The Dangerous Defunding of Science and Research
46:00 – Could a Brain Drain Lead to New Global Research Centers?
47:30 – What Individuals Can Do to Shape the AI Future
48:30 – Closing Reflections
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