Justin Fox, Columnist

No, AI Won’t Use All the Electricity

Utilities’ projections of booming energy demand have a habit of not coming true.

The sun isn’t setting on our electrical grids just yet. 

Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon /AFP/ Getty Images
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Ah, artificial intelligence. Is it going to keep getting smarter, use up all the electricity and render humanity irrelevant? Or is it already maxing out with the surreal images of flight attendants, Jesus and sharks (and sometimes all three) that have taken over Facebook? The correct answer is surely closer to the former than the latter, but it does look like we’re currently headed for the “trough of disillusionment” (or, perhaps more accurately, yet another of many such troughs) in the AI hype cycle.