Yes, AI companies are gambling with our lives, but not only in the way you think

When AI researcher Jacob Coxon warned on X that OpenAI and Anthropic are “gambling with our lives,” he was talking about the threat of “self-improving superintelligence,” technology that can hack anything and “acquire real power.” But that’s not the only threat from the AI boom. Our rapid development of AI is already threatening humans when it comes to our health, due to the environmental impacts of AI data centers and the surge in fossil fuels to power them. Already, AI is threatening billions of people’s access to natural resources, according to United Nations University. By 2030, AI data centers’ water usage will match the needs of 1.3 billion people, that report found. Their power needs will be triple the combined annual electricity use of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria, which encompass more than 650 billion people. And a large portion of those data centers will be powered by fossil fuels, the main driver of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. “In the absence of standards, the climate, health and environmental impacts of AI data centers are already being seen, with stark and alarming projections should data center growth continue unmitigated,” says Maria Fernanda Chave…