The False Choice: National Security or the Planet

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 Follow my work here: Website: https://www.sineadbovell.com Substack: https://sineadbovell.substack.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sineadbovell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sineadbovell Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/SineadBovell YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/Sineadbovell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sineadbovell