Ending It?

If it was not enough to be worried about the drift into authoritarianism under Trump, and the existential threat of climate change, now we’ve got our own creation — artificial intelligence — to be concerned about.

Gingerly seeking an answer to the dreaded question, “Will A.I. Destroy the Planet?”, The New Yorker sent a reporter into one of the massive data centers now under construction to fuel the massive energy needs A.I. requires.

First, there is this: “A single data center can use as much power as the city of Philadelphia. And they’re popping up everywhere. These sprawling buildings, filled with rows of computing equipment, are the factories of the A.I. economy; they power all those mundane chatbot searches, sucking up tons of energy in the process. As the OpenAI C.E.O. Sam Altman put it, ‘I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time.’”

Is there any chance we can stop this disaster from occurring? Apparently not, because people like A.I. too much and as they use it more and more, they are only going to become more dependent on it.

“(T)he evidence shows, conclusively, that people love this. People are using A.I. all the time. Especially young people. It’s, like, their best friend. They call it “Chat.” Eight hundred million weekly average users— ChatGPT is maybe the most successful internet product in history. And that’s just Chat; there are dozens of other services that are also exploding in popularity. Whatever people say about their concerns or fears of A.I.—and those are real—people are using it all the time.”

So there you have it; we’re doomed. And now that I’ve thoroughly buried the lede, the answer to that question up top — “Will A.I. Destroy the Planet?” — unfortunately, is yes.

But wait! I refuse to end this edition of my newsletter on such a down note. There has to be a way to prevent this fate. We’ve got to find a way. After all, Bill Gates now says we’ll survive climate change and we know we can stop Trump.

Plus it’s Halloween. A time when at the very least we pretend.

HEADLINES:

• Will A.I. Destroy the Planet? (New Yorker)

• Trump cuts tariffs on China after ‘truly great’ meeting with Xi (WP)

• Senate approves Democratic resolution that would block Trump’s global tariffs (CBS)

• Berkeley to ICE: Stay off city property (Berkeleyside)

• Nuclear saber-rattling from Trump and Putin signals a dangerous new era (CNN)

• US will limit number of refugees to 7,500 and give priority to white South Africans (Guardian)

• Trump administration makes misleading case in high-stakes asylum hearing (WP)

• Kash Patel Slammed For Using $60 Million FBI Jet To Watch Girlfriend Perform (NDTV)

• Rahm Emanuel … For President? (Atlantic)

• 5 more arrests as Louvre jewel heist probe deepens and key details emerge (AP)

• The EPA Let Companies Estimate Their Own Pollution Levels. We Discovered Real Emissions Are Far Worse. (ProPublica)

• Palestinian militants hand over 2 sets of remains of hostages to Red Cross in Gaza (AP)

• The Junk Foods That Harm Your Brain Most, Ranked by New Research (ScienceAlert)

• Why Journalism Needs Literature (Atlantic)

• The Trump administration’s wrecking ball has come for workers with disabilities. “Where is the humanity?” a laid-off federal employee asks. [HuffPost]

• Investigating the Secret History of a ‘Lawless’ War (NYT)

• Super Teacher is building an AI tutor for elementary schools (TechCrunch)

• AI browsers are a cybersecurity time bomb (Verge)

• DeepSeek may have found a new way to improve AI’s ability to remember (Technology Review)

• Their Professors Caught Them Cheating. They Used A.I. to Apologize. (NYT)

• New Study Finds Americans Need 6 Hours Of Sleep At Work (Onion)