AI Salon Series: Part 4 - The Enviroment

“Our Ecosystem’s Finite Resource, and Data Centers”: A Salon for the Societal Effects of Artificial Intelligence

In the summer of 1956, a group of academics, scientists, and engineers gathered for two months on the Dartmouth College campus in Hanover, New Hampshire. In the words of attendee Dr. John McCarthy, they aimed to “concentrate on a problem of devising a way of programming a calculator to form concepts and to form generalizations...” The four organizers—Claude Shannon, John McCarthy, Nathaniel Rochester, and Marvin Minsky—were leaders in computer science, information theory, and cybernetics. The work that resulted would later be coined “Artificial Intelligence” by McCarthy. The field now includes activities associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, perception, and decision-making.

And yet, some of these men come with heavy baggage: institutional racism and sexism shaped their meaning of “intelligence,” and one had future associations with the worst of the worst. Marvin Minsky was the beneficiary of Jeffrey Epstein’s first $100,000 donation to MIT in 2002, intended to fund his artificial intelligence research. Epstein began a decade-long partnership with Minsky, organizing artificial intelligence conferences, private dinners, introductions to wealthy patrons, and more. Minsky is on record as having attended gatherings with Epstein in 2011, after Epstein was a convicted sex offender. He was described as one of Epstein’s “closest friends” in 2013 and visited him in a Florida prison that year. These connections helped establish Epstein’s credibility as a backer in prestigious scientific and academic circles through MIT’s AI and Media Labs.

Now we are inundated with the revolutionary software concept of Large Language Models. And yet, the public feels at wit’s end with the results: How can something deemed as revolutionary as electricity cause such friction and degradation of quality of life in our personal lives? The effects of the marker’s mark run deep.

Join us for an evening of conversation drawing on a collection of over 200 published articles on the development of artificial intelligence. Each event in the series focuses on fields of life pursuits, allowing deeper reflection on how we live with this new tool.

“Our Ecosystem’s Finite Resources, and Data Centers” is the topic of the fourth installment, “THE ENVIRONMENT,” prompted by the response the world community has given—and continues to give—in the wake of artificial intelligence tools. There is only one Earth (despite pure gossip about data centers “at-scale” in space), with resources that have different rates of replenishment. With recent conversations about grid reliance and record energy bills, how we choose to engage matters. The pre-training stage of artificial intelligence manufacturing is the most energy-consuming part of the pipeline, involving two to three months of intense energy use, while a single text query is equivalent to half a second on a microwave oven. A.I. tools are already powering the next generation of drug and materials discovery for pharmaceuticals. Will sustainable energy be next?

Light refreshments of snacks and canned drinks will be provided.

Join us Monday, November 30th at 5:30 p.m. for the fourth installment: THE ENVIRONMENT—“Our Ecosystem’s Finite Resources, and Data Centers.”

Admission is $30 per person, $10 for HCM members, and free for veterans, seniors, and students. All event proceeds go to the Hart Cluett Museum.

Other series date:
- December 14: Community—“Technology’s Role in Belonging and Connections”