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MIT affiliates named 2024 Schmidt Futures AI2050 Fellows

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Friday, December 13, 2024

Five MIT faculty members and two additional alumni were recently named to the 2024 cohort of AI2050 Fellows. The honor is announced annually by Schmidt Futures, Eric and Wendy Schmidt’s philanthropic initiative that aims to accelerate scientific innovation. Conceived and co-chaired by Eric Schmidt and James Manyika, AI2050 is a philanthropic initiative aimed at helping to solve hard problems in AI. Within their research, each fellow will contend with the central motivating question of AI2050: “It’s 2050. AI has turned out to be hugely beneficial to society. What happened? What are the most important problems we solved and the opportunities and possibilities we realized to ensure this outcome?”This year’s MIT-affiliated AI2050 Fellows include:David Autor, the Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, and co-director of the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative and the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Labor Studies Program, has been named a 2024 AI2050 senior fellow. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes. Autor’s AI2050 project will leverage real-time data on AI adoption to clarify how new tools interact with human capabilities in shaping employment and earnings. The work will provide an accessible framework for entrepreneurs, technologists, and policymakers seeking to understand, tangibly, how AI can complement human expertise. Autor has received numerous awards and honors, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, and the Heinz 25th Special Recognition Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his work “transforming our understanding of how globalization and technological change are impacting jobs and earning prospects for American workers.” In 2023, Autor was one of two researchers across all scientific fields selected as a NOMIS Distinguished Scientist.Sara Beery, an assistant professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a principal investigator in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), has been named an early career fellow. Beery’s work focuses on building computer vision methods that enable global-scale environmental and biodiversity monitoring across data modalities and tackling real-world challenges, including strong spatiotemporal correlations, imperfect data quality, fine-grained categories, and long-tailed distributions. She collaborates with nongovernmental organizations and government agencies to deploy her methods worldwide and works toward increasing the diversity and accessibility of academic research in artificial intelligence through interdisciplinary capacity-building and education. Beery earned a BS in electrical engineering and mathematics from Seattle University and a PhD in computing and mathematical sciences from Caltech, where she was honored with the Amori Prize for her outstanding dissertation.Gabriele Farina, an assistant professor in EECS and a principal investigator in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), has been named an early career fellow. Farina’s work lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, computer science, operations research, and economics. Specifically, he focuses on learning and optimization methods for sequential decision-making and convex-concave saddle point problems, with applications to equilibrium finding in games. Farina also studies computational game theory and recently served as co-author on a Science study about combining language models with strategic reasoning. He is a recipient of a NeurIPS Best Paper Award and was a Facebook Fellow in economics and computer science. His dissertation was recognized with the 2023 ACM SIGecom Doctoral Dissertation Award and one of the two 2023 ACM Dissertation Award Honorable Mentions, among others.Marzyeh Ghassemi PhD ’17, an associate professor in EECS and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, principal investigator at CSAIL and LIDS, and affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, has been named an early career fellow. Ghassemi’s research in the Healthy ML Group creates a rigorous quantitative framework in which to design, develop, and place ML models in a way that is robust and fair, focusing on health settings. Her contributions range from socially aware model construction to improving subgroup- and shift-robust learning methods to identifying important insights in model deployment scenarios that have implications in policy, health practice, and equity. Among other awards, Ghassemi has been named one of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35; and has been awarded the 2018 Seth J. Teller Award, the 2023 MIT Prize for Open Data, a 2024 NSF CAREER Award, and the Google Research Scholar Award. She founded the nonprofit Association for Health, Inference and Learning (AHLI) and her work has been featured in popular press such as Forbes, Fortune, MIT News, and The Huffington Post.Yoon Kim, an assistant professor in EECS and a principal investigator in CSAIL, has been named an early career fellow. Kim’s work straddles the intersection between natural language processing and machine learning, and touches upon efficient training and deployment of large-scale models, learning from small data, neuro-symbolic approaches, grounded language learning, and connections between computational and human language processing. Affiliated with CSAIL, Kim earned his PhD in computer science at Harvard University; his MS in data science from New York University; his MA in statistics from Columbia University; and his BA in both math and economics from Cornell University. Additional alumni Roger Grosse PhD ’14, a computer science associate professor at the University of Toronto, and David Rolnick ’12, PhD ’18, assistant professor at Mila-Quebec AI Institute, were also named senior and early career fellows, respectively.

Five MIT faculty members and two additional alumni are honored with fellowships to advance research on beneficial AI.

Conceived and co-chaired by Eric Schmidt and James Manyika, AI2050 is a philanthropic initiative aimed at helping to solve hard problems in AI. Within their research, each fellow will contend with the central motivating question of AI2050: “It’s 2050. AI has turned out to be hugely beneficial to society. What happened? What are the most important problems we solved and the opportunities and possibilities we realized to ensure this outcome?”

This year’s MIT-affiliated AI2050 Fellows include:

David Autor, the Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, and co-director of the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative and the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Labor Studies Program, has been named a 2024 AI2050 senior fellow. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes. Autor’s AI2050 project will leverage real-time data on AI adoption to clarify how new tools interact with human capabilities in shaping employment and earnings. The work will provide an accessible framework for entrepreneurs, technologists, and policymakers seeking to understand, tangibly, how AI can complement human expertise. Autor has received numerous awards and honors, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, and the Heinz 25th Special Recognition Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his work “transforming our understanding of how globalization and technological change are impacting jobs and earning prospects for American workers.” In 2023, Autor was one of two researchers across all scientific fields selected as a NOMIS Distinguished Scientist.

Sara Beery, an assistant professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a principal investigator in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), has been named an early career fellow. Beery’s work focuses on building computer vision methods that enable global-scale environmental and biodiversity monitoring across data modalities and tackling real-world challenges, including strong spatiotemporal correlations, imperfect data quality, fine-grained categories, and long-tailed distributions. She collaborates with nongovernmental organizations and government agencies to deploy her methods worldwide and works toward increasing the diversity and accessibility of academic research in artificial intelligence through interdisciplinary capacity-building and education. Beery earned a BS in electrical engineering and mathematics from Seattle University and a PhD in computing and mathematical sciences from Caltech, where she was honored with the Amori Prize for her outstanding dissertation.

Gabriele Farina, an assistant professor in EECS and a principal investigator in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), has been named an early career fellow. Farina’s work lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, computer science, operations research, and economics. Specifically, he focuses on learning and optimization methods for sequential decision-making and convex-concave saddle point problems, with applications to equilibrium finding in games. Farina also studies computational game theory and recently served as co-author on a Science study about combining language models with strategic reasoning. He is a recipient of a NeurIPS Best Paper Award and was a Facebook Fellow in economics and computer science. His dissertation was recognized with the 2023 ACM SIGecom Doctoral Dissertation Award and one of the two 2023 ACM Dissertation Award Honorable Mentions, among others.

Marzyeh Ghassemi PhD ’17, an associate professor in EECS and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, principal investigator at CSAIL and LIDS, and affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, has been named an early career fellow. Ghassemi’s research in the Healthy ML Group creates a rigorous quantitative framework in which to design, develop, and place ML models in a way that is robust and fair, focusing on health settings. Her contributions range from socially aware model construction to improving subgroup- and shift-robust learning methods to identifying important insights in model deployment scenarios that have implications in policy, health practice, and equity. Among other awards, Ghassemi has been named one of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35; and has been awarded the 2018 Seth J. Teller Award, the 2023 MIT Prize for Open Data, a 2024 NSF CAREER Award, and the Google Research Scholar Award. She founded the nonprofit Association for Health, Inference and Learning (AHLI) and her work has been featured in popular press such as Forbes, Fortune, MIT News, and The Huffington Post.

Yoon Kim, an assistant professor in EECS and a principal investigator in CSAIL, has been named an early career fellow. Kim’s work straddles the intersection between natural language processing and machine learning, and touches upon efficient training and deployment of large-scale models, learning from small data, neuro-symbolic approaches, grounded language learning, and connections between computational and human language processing. Affiliated with CSAIL, Kim earned his PhD in computer science at Harvard University; his MS in data science from New York University; his MA in statistics from Columbia University; and his BA in both math and economics from Cornell University.

Additional alumni Roger Grosse PhD ’14, a computer science associate professor at the University of Toronto, and David Rolnick ’12, PhD ’18, assistant professor at Mila-Quebec AI Institute, were also named senior and early career fellows, respectively.

Read the full story here.

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Travel influencers ‘do crazy things’ to entertain us – and downplay the risks

Australians use social media to plan outdoor adventures. But travel influencers take risks to in remote locations . Are they putting followers in danger?

It’s common for Australians to use social media to find their next hike or swimming spot. And there’s a huge array of travel influencers willing to supply the #inspo for their next trip. Many of these influencers create their content in a way that respects the environment and their followers. But unfortunately, not all #travelspo is made with such consideration. My new research reveals how Australian travel and adventure influencers think about risk, responsibility and their role in shaping how their followers behave in natural environments. Collectively, their accounts reach tens of thousands of people and prompt them to visit these parks in real life. Yet most influencers in my study saw themselves as entertainers, not educators. And that distinction can have consequences, such as falls and drownings. People are risking their lives at cliff edges, mountain overhangs and around water. In fact, 379 people died taking selfies between 2008 and 2021. ‘Here to inspire, not teach’ I interviewed 19 Australian influencers aged 23–41 who specialise in travel and outdoor content. Despite their large followings (up to 80,000), many rejected the idea they have a responsibility to overtly warn people about hazards. As one put it: “We’re not an education page. If you want [to know?] what you should and shouldn’t be doing, follow a National Parks page.” Another explained that influencers are : “just there to entertain.” Influencers consistently distanced themselves from the expectation they should communicate safety information. Many argued it was up to followers to “do their own research” or take “personal responsibility” when attempting the difficult hikes, cliff-edge photos or waterhole jumps they had seen online. A few admitted they would “feel guilty” if someone was injured imitating their content, but quickly neutralised that responsibility by noting there was no way to know whether their post had caused the behaviour. Why downplay hazards? Social media platforms reward spectacular content. Posts showing people on cliff edges, waterfalls, remote rock formations or narrow ledges outperform more banal imagery. One influencer was blunt: “People want to watch people do crazy things… not talk about risk.” Others acknowledged they sometimes entered closed areas or assessed hazards themselves, dismissing signage unless they believed it related to environmental or cultural protection. A national survey we conducted found that social norms – the sense that “everyone does this” or will admire it – strongly predicted risky behaviour outdoors. People were far more likely to climb out onto ledges or jump into waterfalls if they believed others would approve. How risky they thought the activity was barely seemed to matter. Influencers also curate a platform-specific aesthetic: Instagram is “perfect”, TikTok more “raw”, but neither encourages long, careful explanations of risk. Detailed safety advice was described as “ruining the vibe” or diminishing the illusion that inspires engagement. This creates a perverse incentive: the more dangerous the content looks, the better it performs, meaning influencers may unintentionally promote behaviours unsafe for many followers. Online posts are trusted Australians treat influencer content as a trusted source of outdoor inspiration. Followers may assume a location is safe because an influencer went there and filmed it. This impression is strengthened by the influencers’ perceived authenticity — a form of experiential credibility that substitutes for formal expertise. Influencers in my study acknowledged their posts can send large numbers of unprepared visitors to fragile or hazardous environments. Some refused to share exact locations for this reason. Others posted the image but omitted details to avoid encouraging inexperienced users to attempt risky spots. But most still avoided overt safety messaging because it felt mismatched to their brand — or simply because posts that highlighted difficulty or danger “don’t perform well”. As I’ve argued elsewhere, our increasingly curated experience of the outdoors – from manicured trails to social media-driven expectations – has weakened the sense of personal responsibility that once came with venturing into nature. Influencer content amplifies this shift by presenting the outdoors as effortless, aesthetic and risk-free, even when the reality is very different. Why this matters This dynamic creates challenges for Australia’s national parks and land managers. My earlier research showed rangers are dealing with increased injuries, rescues and environmental strain linked to social media-driven visitation. In my work with the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service, I saw first-hand how social media funnels huge numbers of people into the same photogenic spots. About a third of visitors said Instagram had influenced their decision to visit, and many described going “for the photo” rather than for the walk or the landscape itself. That behaviour often puts pressure on rangers and increases the likelihood of slips, falls and rescues. Influencers hold enormous reach with audiences that official agencies often struggle to connect with. Many are open to collaborating – but only when safety messages can be delivered in ways that fit their storytelling style and personal brand. As one influencer summed up: “If it’s culturally sensitive or damaging to the environment, that’s where I draw the line. But safety – I’m happy to push the boundaries.” Risk-taking gets rewarded Influencers are not acting maliciously. They operate within a commercial and algorithmic system that rewards spectacle over nuance. But understanding how they see their role helps explain why risky content thrives — and why followers may misjudge the real-world hazards behind the perfect shot. If organisations want to reduce injuries and environmental pressures, engaging influencers through co-designed communication strategies may be essential. Because for many Australians, the journey outdoors now begins on a screen. Samuel Cornell receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship

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Kennedy's Vaccine Advisory Committee Meets to Discuss Hepatitis B Shots for Newborns

A federal vaccine advisory committee is meeting in Atlanta to discuss whether newborns should still get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born

A federal vaccine advisory committee convened Thursday in Atlanta to discuss whether newborns should still get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they're born.For decades, the government has advised that all babies be vaccinated against the liver infection right after birth. The shots are widely considered to be a public health success for preventing thousands of illnesses.But U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s committee is considering whether to recommend the birth dose only for babies whose mothers test positive, which would mark a return to a public health strategy that was abandoned more than three decades ago. For other babies, it will be up to the parents and their doctors to decide if a birth dose is appropriate.Committee member Vicky Pebsworth said a work group was tasked in September with evaluating whether a birth dose is necessary when mothers tested negative for hepatitis B.“We need to address stakeholder and parent dissatisfaction" with the current recommendation, she said.The committee makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how already approved vaccines should be used. CDC directors almost always adopted the committee’s recommendations, which were widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs. But the agency currently has no director, leaving acting director Jim O'Neill to decide.The panel has made several decisions that angered major medical groups.At a June meeting, it recommended that a preservative called thimerosal be removed from doses of flu vaccine even though some members acknowledged there was no proof it was causing harm. In September, it recommended new restrictions on a combination shot that protects against chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella. The panel also took the unprecedented step of not recommending COVID-19 vaccinations, even for high-risk populations such as seniors, and instead making it a matter of personal choice.Several doctors groups said the changes were not based on good evidence, and advised doctors and patients to follow guidance that was previously in place.Hepatitis B is a serious liver infection that, for most people, lasts less than six months. But for some, especially infants and children, it can become a long-lasting problem that can lead to liver failure, liver cancer and scarring called cirrhosis.In adults, the virus is spread through sex or through sharing needles during injection drug use.But it can also be passed from an infected mother to a baby. As many as 90% of infants who contract hepatitis B go on to have chronic infections, meaning their immune systems don’t completely clear the virus.In 1991, the committee recommended an initial dose of hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Over about 30 years, cases among children fell from about 18,000 per year to about 2,200.But members of Kennedy's committee have voiced discomfort with vaccinating all newborns.Cynthia Nevison, an autism and environmental researcher, presented at the meeting. Nevison has written opinion pieces published by Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy organization Kennedy previously led. She also co-authored a 2021 article in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders that the publication retracted after concerns were raised about the paper’s methodology and about nondisclosed ties between the authors and anti-vaccine groups.Another presenter was Mark Blaxill, a co-author of the retracted paper, who spoke about vaccine safety.In the past, committee meetings have relied on presentations by the CDC scientists involved in tracking vaccine-preventable diseases and assessing vaccine safety. The agenda for this meeting listed no CDC scientists, but rather featured a prolonged public airing of anti-vaccine theories that most scientists have deemed as discredited. Kennedy is a lawyer by training. Aaron Siri, a lawyer who worked with Kennedy to sue vaccine makers, is listed as a presenter on Friday on the topic of the immunization schedule for U.S. children.The current guidance advises a dose within 24 hours of birth for all medically stable infants who weigh at least 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms), plus follow-up shots to be given at about 1 month and 6 months. The committee is expected to vote on language that says when a family decides not to get a birth dose, then the vaccination series should begin when the child is 2 months old.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

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My father, Ken Saro-Wiwa, died fighting for a clean Nigeria. Thirty years on it’s time to stop sucking on the dirty teat of the oil cash cow | Noo Saro-Wiwa

In 1995, as one of the Ogoni Nine, he was hanged after protesting against Shell’s oil pollution. With education and a move towards renewable energy, we can honour his legacyEarlier this year, my father, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and his eight colleagues, known collectively as the Ogoni Nine, were pardoned for a crime they never committed. After peacefully campaigning against environmental degradation of Ogoniland in Nigeria at the hands of the oil industry, they were imprisoned by the military dictatorship on false charges of treason and incitement to murder, following a trial condemned by the international community as a sham.On 10 November 1995, the men were executed by hanging. Continue reading...

Earlier this year, my father, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and his eight colleagues, known collectively as the Ogoni Nine, were pardoned for a crime they never committed. After peacefully campaigning against environmental degradation of Ogoniland in Nigeria at the hands of the oil industry, they were imprisoned by the military dictatorship on false charges of treason and incitement to murder, following a trial condemned by the international community as a sham.On 10 November 1995, the men were executed by hanging.Thirty years on, the government of President Bola Tinubu granted a pardon to the Ogoni Nine. While our families welcome this as a step in the right direction, it is not enough – a pardon suggests that these nine innocent men committed a crime. Although the court of public opinion recognises their innocence and courage, it is important that they are officially exonerated. The refusal of successive governments to do this speaks volumes. It speaks of a corrupt cabal that has ruled Nigeria directly and indirectly over the past few decades and continues to stifle any attempt to honour my father’s memory.But that legacy can never be suppressed. Ken Saro-Wiwa and thousands of brave Ogoni protesters ensured that Shell Oil pulled out of Ogoniland in 1993. Since then, the multinational has been held to account for some of its environmental damage and was ordered to pay compensation for oil spills including the disaster in Bodo in 2008. Shell subsequently divested from the Niger delta earlier this year and sold its onshore leases to a local consortium (which raises further concerns about their liability for past oil spills). My father’s death led to the creation of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (Hyprep), which continues its task of cleaning up the hydrocarbon pollution in Ogoniland, albeit with mixed results.Pollution levels are still unacceptably high. Militancy, the sabotaging of pipelines and illegal refining have further damaged the environment, and now, high unemployment and the cost of living crisis have compelled some Ogonis to call for the resumption of oil extraction. While I fully sympathise with their wishes, welcoming back the oil companies would be an insult to my father’s memory and a huge step backwards. The industry, even if properly managed, is not labour intensive and it benefits a relative few. Its continued extraction elsewhere in the delta offers a cautionary tale. Last year, I drove through the Obrikom oil and gas field, about 50 miles (80km) northwest of Ogoniland, where I saw crude petroleum gushing furiously from a broken pipe and into a river. The sight of that blackened water was horrifying. That the pipeline wasn’t fixed for months was even more appalling.Activists from Extinction Rebellion protest outside the Shell Centre on the 25th anniversary of the execution of the Ogoni Nine, 10 November 2020 in London, UK. Photograph: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures/Getty ImagesIronically, I witnessed that leak while on my way to visit a renewable energy project that I was involved with as a consultant. A solar power plant has now been installed in Umuolu, enabling the remote riverine community to rely entirely on clean energy. There are no oil spills and no tensions about who will be employed by the energy company. Residents fish and farm the land, which is how it should be. Why suck on the dirty teat of the petroleum cash cow when we have incredible natural assets? In September, I visited a conservation project, the SW/Niger Delta Forest Project, where Rachel Ashegbofe Ikemeh and her team are doing a sterling job of conserving a slice of the Apoi Creek, a primary rainforest that is home to the last most-significant population of the Niger Delta red colobus monkey, bush pigs, the African pied hornbill, water chevrotains, the mangabey and other species. The forest is a glimpse into our beautiful ecological past and a preview of what could be regained under the right stewardship. Ikemeh’s team have successfully educated the Apoi community about protecting the forest and its wildlife rather than eating it.My father understood that our wealth lies in our ecology and in education, and that we could one day move away from oilIt is an education sorely needed elsewhere in the region. Just a few weeks ago, on an Ogoni Facebook group page, I saw a photo of a live giant leatherback turtle that had been dragged into a village after washing up on shore. I was amazed and excited, yet in the comment section people discussed whether it should be eaten or not. Meanwhile, in places such as Tobago and Costa Rica, tourists pay thousands of dollars to come and see turtles like that. The animal’s appearance on our shores, though rare, proves that wildlife still exists in the Niger delta’s lushly vegetated creeks, rivers and beaches. Accommodating nature and farming is a huge conundrum, of course, but there’s an economy that can be created by leveraging our natural assets. Crucially, it requires moving towards non-polluting, renewable energy that can power our small businesses cleanly and reliably, and boost the economy.My father understood that our wealth lies in our ecology and in education, and that we could one day move away from oil, especially if it enriches everyone else at the Ogonis’ expense. I remember him showing me and my siblings around the garden in our house in Port Harcourt, teaching us about the flowers and the fireflies. Through the Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation, which will relaunch in the coming months, I hope we can boost education and bring solar energy to Ogoniland and gradually transform it into a place of non-oil entrepreneurship, agriculture and natural beauty that will honour my father’s legacy.Noo Saro-Wiwa is the author of Looking For Transwonderland (Granta) and Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans In China (Canongate)A Month And A Day: A Detention Diary, by Ken Saro-Wiwa, is published by Ayebia Clarke Publishing

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White House Begins Mass Firing of Federal Employees Amid Shutdown War

Russell Vought, the White House budget director, announced that the administration has begun firing federal workers en masse.Vought warned last week that “consequential” layoffs were forthcoming amid the ongoing government shutdown. On Friday, he tweeted, “The RIFs have begun,” referring to “reductions in force.”Vought, as anticipated, is now using the government shutdown to cull the federal workforce, fulfilling Trump’s recent vow to cut “vast numbers of people out,” as well as slash programs that he says Democrats “like.”An unnamed White House official told MSNBC’s Vaughn Hillyard, “We expect thousands of people to unfortunately be laid off due to the government shutdown.” CNN’s Alayna Treene reports that a White House official said that fired workers have begun receiving notices and, “It will be substantial.”Agencies poised to be affected, according to Politico, include the Departments of the Interior, Treasury, Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency.Reacting to Vought’s four-word social media announcement, the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 820,000 government workers, shot back: “The lawsuit has been filed.” The AFL-CIO told Vought, “America’s unions will see you in court.”This story has been updated.

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A.I. Is on the Rise, and So Is the Environmental Impact of the Data Centers That Drive It

The demand for data centers is growing faster than our ability to mitigate their skyrocketing economic and environmental costs

A.I. Is on the Rise, and So Is the Environmental Impact of the Data Centers That Drive It The demand for data centers is growing faster than our ability to mitigate their skyrocketing economic and environmental costs Amber X. Chen - AAAS Mass Media Fellow September 29, 2025 8:00 a.m. Amazon data centers sit next to houses in Loudoun County. Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post via Getty Images Key takeaways: A.I. and data centers As the demand for A.I. increases, companies are building more data centers to handle a growing workload. Many of these data centers are more than 30,000 square feet in size and use a lot of power and water. Gregory Pirio says he never would have moved to his townhome in Northern Virginia’s Loudoun County had he known that the area would soon be at the epicenter of a data center boom. Pirio—who works as the director of the Extractive Industry and Human Development Center at the Institute of World Affairs—moved to the county, just about an hour’s drive outside of Washington, D.C. 14 years ago. Back then, he recalls the place being filled with forested areas and farmland, with the occasional sounds of planes flying in from Dulles. “It was just really beautiful, and now it has this very industrial feel across it,” he says, adding that one can now drive for miles and just see data centers. Data centers are buildings that house the infrastructure needed to run computers, including servers, network equipment and data storage drives. Though they’ve been around since 1945 with the invention of the first general-purpose digital computer, in the past few years there has been an explosion in data center development to match the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. Over the past year, the environmental consequences of A.I.—specifically its most popular generative platforms like ChatGPT—have been under intense scrutiny. Last July, NPR reported that each ChatGPT search uses ten times more electricity than a Google search. In March 2024, Forbes reported that the water consumption associated with a single conversation with ChatGPT was comparable to that of a standard plastic water bottle. The emissions of data centers are only projected to go up, especially as companies look to employ A.I. on users’ behalf. For example, in May, Google announced A.I. overviews, a new user enhancement strategy that uses A.I. to create succinct summaries based on websites associated with a Google search query. Those queries and others like it on different platforms increase the need for additional data centers, which will require more and more energy. What are data centers? Data centers come in a variety of sizes. According to a 2024 report by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, they can range from smaller centers—integrated into larger buildings for internal use by companies—that are on average less than 150 square feet, to hyperscale centers which are operated off-site by large tech companies to facilitate large-scale internet services. On average, hyperscale data centers are 30,000 square feet, although the largest of these data centers can reach sizes of well over one million square feet. As of 2024, more than half of the world’s hyperscale data centers were owned by tech giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Large data centers, particularly hyperscalers, are the data center of choice for companies looking to operate A.I. platforms, due to their high computing power. Clusters of large data centers are strategically chosen based on proximity to clients, electricity costs and available infrastructure. For example, data centers have been running through Northern Virginia since the advent of the internet in the mid-1990s because of the area’s cheap energy, a favorable regulatory system and proximity to Washington. Northern Virginia holds the highest concentration of data centers in the world at over 250 facilities. Across the state, data centers are now near schools, residential neighborhoods and retirement communities. According to Ann Bennett, data center issues chair at the Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter, new data centers that have been popping up across the area are of an entirely different scale and era. “These are bigger, taller,” Bennett says. “They’re pretty much only building hyperscalers.” How do data centers consume energy? To power the digital world—from day-to-day digital communications, websites and data storage—data centers require energy to power the hundreds of servers within them. With the advent of more hyperscale data centers being built to support A.I., data center energy use has increased. Benjamin Lee, a computer scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, breaks the high energy consumption of A.I. into two categories. First, there is the training that A.I. models undergo, in which tens of thousands of graphics processing units, or GPUs, within a data center must consume large datasets to train the parameters of more powerful A.I. models. Second, once an A.I. model is trained, it performs inference—or the process of responding to user requests based on its training. According to Lee, every word that a user provides to an A.I. model is processed to figure out not only what the word means but the extent to which that word relates to all other words that have been fed into the model. Thus, as more words increase processing time, more energy is consumed. “Fundamentally, A.I. uses energy, and it doesn’t care where that energy is coming from,” Lee says. Data centers mostly get their energy from whatever local grid is available to them. Globally, because most electric grids still rely heavily on fossil fuels, A.I. increases greenhouse gas emissions, says Shaolei Ren, a computer engineer at the University of California, Riverside. Virginia, for example, is part of PJM grid, for which the primary fuel source is natural gas. According to Noman Bashir, a computer engineer at MIT, because data centers are huge power consumers they often disrupt electric grid infrastructure, which can decrease the lifespan of household appliances, for example. In addition, Bashir notes that grid infrastructure must be updated when each new data center comes in—a cost that residents are subsidizing. In a 2025 report, the Dominion Energy found that that residential electric bills are projected to more than double by 2039, primarily due to data center growth. Already, the technology industry has seen a growth in emissions, mostly fueled by data centers. In July, Amazon reported that its emissions rose from 64.38 million metric tons in 2023 to 68.25 million metric tons in 2024—the company’s first emissions increase since 2021, primarily due to data centers and the delivery fleet it uses. Google, too, reported that its 2023 greenhouse gas emissions marked a 48 percent increase since 2019, mostly due to data center development and the production of goods and services for company operations. How else does A.I. impact the environment? Another dimension of A.I.’s environmental footprint is its water consumption. To put it simply, Ren explains that these powerful computers that run A.I. also get extremely hot. So, to keep them from overheating, data centers cool them with power air conditioning systems that are run by water. Water that is heated by computers is moved to massive cooling towers on top of a data center, and then is circulated back in. A data center’s direct water consumption is attributed to the water that evaporates during this process. This water loss is then left to the whims of the water cycle. “You don’t know how long [the water] will take to return or whether it will return to a specific geographic location,” Lee explains. “So where water is scarce, it’s a concern.” In 2023, data centers in the U.S. directly consumed about 66 billion liters of water. Bashir adds that the industry’s environmental impacts can also be seen farther up the supply chain. The GPUs that power A.I. data centers are made with rare earth elements, the extraction of which Bashir notes is resource intensive and can cause environmental degradation. How will data centers affect power consumption in the future? In order to meet A.I.’s hunger for power, companies are looking to expand fossil fuel energy projects: In July, developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline—a natural gas system that spans about 303 miles across Virginia—announced that they were considering a plan to boost the pipeline’s natural gas capacity by 25 percent. Earlier this year, the Atlanta-based electric utility Southern Company announced that it would backtrack on its previous announcement to retire a majority of its coal-fired power plants, citing growing demand from data centers. And when the grid can’t satisfy their needs, Lee says that data centers are now increasingly developing their own power sources—whether from renewable energy sources like nuclear or fossil fuel-based power plants. Pirio lives about 150 yards away from a data center that is not connected to the local grid. Instead, it’s powered by natural gas turbines with back-up diesel generators. He says that the noise pollution associated with the data center’s gas turbines is a huge problem for him and his neighbors, describing the din as a constant, humming sound. “Many of the neighbors, we got decimal reader apps, and it was off the charts. … They were like 90 decibels near our house,” he says. Pirio explains that he can no longer open the windows of his house on cool evenings because of the noise. He says another neighbor put mattresses against their window to block the noise. Pirio says he and his neighbors have no way of assessing what the emissions coming from the gas turbines are. “There’s just not structure for us to know, and they’re pretty much invisible,” he says. The Environmental Protection Energy notes that the presence of a fossil fuel-based power plant can significantly degrade air quality and emit toxic heavy metals like mercury into the atmosphere, harming local populations’ health. Vantage Data Centers, the company which runs the data center near Pirio, says it has installed Selective Catalytic Reductions (SCRs) which, according to its website, can reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel generators by up to 90 percent. Resident health and quality of life are not the only factors associated with data centers developing their own power sources. Even when data centers produce their own energy, Lee says the grid still provides them with significant backup infrastructure—which as Bashir explains, can still overwhelm the grid, causing it to become more unreliable for residents. How can A.I.’s data centers be made more sustainable? According to Lee, the renewable energy sector is simply not growing fast enough to meet the needs of A.I. While some analyses position data centers to grow at a rate of as much as 33 percent a year, the World Economic Forum says that global renewable energy capacity grew by 15.1 percent in 2024. Bashir and Lee both emphasize that much of the data center growth we are seeing is not being built on actual need, but speculation. According to Bashir, because tech companies are building data centers at such a rapid pace, these new centers will inevitably be powered by gas generators or other forms of fossil fuel, simply because infrastructure for widespread renewable energy does not yet exist. Beyond improving investments into renewable energy, Lee says that working toward algorithmic optimization is another way for A.I.’s data centers to lessen their carbon footprint. In a 2022 article, Lee—in collaboration with researchers at Meta—identified ways in which optimizing A.I. models can also improve sustainability. For example, researchers identified “data scaling”—in which a model is fed more data sets, resulting in a larger carbon footprint—as the current standard method to improve model accuracy. With a more efficient algorithm, energy costs could be significantly reduced. Lee emphasizes that those working toward creating more efficient A.I. must also focus on achieving a lower carbon footprint. Bashir adds that education remains an important tool to cutting back on A.I.’s emissions. “People can be educated on what are the A.I. tools available at their disposal,” he says. “How can they optimize their use? And [we need to tell] them of all the negative impacts of their use, so that they can decide if a particular use is worth this impact.” Get the latest Science stories in your inbox.

Education

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Women Are The Answer

Population growth has been left out of the climate debate because it is considered controversial, yet it is one of the most important factors. The global population has passed the 7 billion mark and India will soon overtake China as the most populous nation in the world, but one state in southern India has found the solution: Kerala educates its women. The unique history of Kerala and ‘the Kerala Model’ is outlined, using it as an example of achieving population control in developing countries without coercion. Links are highlighted within the documentary between issues such as women’s education, women’s rights and status in society, women’s health, population growth, global poverty and global food shortage, economic growth and environmental stability.

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Waterfall Birds

In a place in Egypt that is close to Cairo, however, most people do not know it. The filmmaker went on a Nile cruise to discover the waterfalls world and their islands. At this place, she started a very interesting hobby called birdwatching. This hobby makes her identify different types of birds that are not known among the public.

Animals

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Taking Flight

In an area where traditional education fails students, one Mayan woman starts her own school in order to rebuild her community from the ground up. Through her integral education, which includes meals for students and workshops for their parents, Ingrid Villaseñor strengthens her home of Panajachel one step at a time.

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