Hello and welcome to the program. The AI
revolution runs on electricity. Lots of
it. Vast amounts of it. The data centers
being built right now to power the next
generation of AI consume as much energy
as a small city. Last year, the world's
biggest tech companies spent more than
$400 billion building them. And they
need more of them, many more of them.
But there's a problem. In the United
States, four in 10 of the data centers
that are being planned for this year are
at serious risk of delay. Not enough
power, not enough equipment, and not
enough people to build them. Why? Also
on the program this week, Coachella, the
world's most glamorous music festival.
But some of the online influences you
may have seen pictured in the California
desert alongside the biggest stars were
fake, not real. They don't exist. AI
generated to promote brands and to make
money. Plus, we'll also talk this week
about the late Val Kilmer appearing in a
new film one year after his death. with
us this week to talk about it, Palmy
Olsen, uh who is a technology columnist
at Bloomberg. Welcome to you.
>> Thank you.
>> Also here, Dr. Sasha Luchoni, a computer
scientist specializing in AI and its
environmental impact and also in the
studio with us. Uh good to have her back
here. Dr. Stephanie Hair, colleague, uh
author and AI expert to give you your
full title. Um Pommy, let us start with
this issue of data centers. Um we're
building lots of them. They are powering
the AI revolution.
Why are so many of them on hold?
>> Yeah. So this is really an issue of
bottlenecks and you sort of alluded to
it in your introduction. There's the
issue of power. So getting access to
actual power on electricity grids that
are very very old and haven't received a
lot of investment over many decades in
the United States. Um also equipment,
getting access to things like
transformers or switch gear, which are
the types of equipments you need to
actually run data centers. There's also
a huge bottleneck getting them. It could
take up to five years to get some of
that equipment, particularly because a
lot of it comes from China and recent US
tariffs on Chinese goods has made that
even more difficult. And then there's
also just getting the people, the
talent, um the electricians um and the
people with the skill set who can
actually uh construct and run these data
centers. Um so all those things combined
have meant that at a time when there is
this rapacious demand for um for energy
from tech companies, it's actually very
difficult to build them fast enough.
>> Does that problem become more acute in
the energy crisis we're in currently?
>> I think it does to some extent and it's
more of a problem for the so-called
hyperscalers, the big tech companies
like Meta, um Alphabet, Amazon, etc. who
are actually the ones who have to shell
out for these energy costs. And so
they're setting up um these kind of mini
nuclear reactors that can actually
provide um energy specifically for the
data center um and use renewable sources
instead of gas. But at the moment even
getting those up and running is
logistically very very difficult. It's
time consuming. There aren't any
actually that are operational just yet.
and and so right now I think the main
source of energy is gas.
>> Should we give our viewers just a scale
of what we're talking about here? Scott
Galloway who might be coming on the
program next week over in New York, he
says Open AI alone, Stephanie will need
20% of current US electricity capacity
at $10 trillion.
>> That's extraordinary. It's extraordinary
for a company that is yet to turn a
profit and which is under huge pressure
to demonstrate value ahead of an IPO as
well. So it's just worth saying that all
of these companies, not just OpenAI,
were making very big promises about
their data structure buildout plans as
of last year. We've already seen the US
UK technology deal that's on hold. We've
seen OpenAI have to pull out of some of
its Stargate, the big US data structure
plan. and they've had to pull out on
some of those things. Maybe we are
walking back. So that question of will
the AI bubble burst? It might not burst.
It might just sort of slightly
>> situation, isn't it? When you think that
actually if you're going to plug these
into the grid and you don't know whether
these companies are going to survive in
the scale or perhaps they're even bigger
than they are right now, it you it's a
difficult thing to plan.
>> It's a difficult thing to plan when
you're not a planned economy. Which is
why when we're looking at the data
center roll out in a country like China
and comparing that to the United States
or indeed here in Europe, we get very
different pictures.
>> Right. Um Dr. Luchi, Sasha, I'm going to
call you Sasha. Does it make sense for
the US president to be so vehemently
opposed to renewable energy given the
scale that we're talking?
Well, the problem is is that the data
centers are being built so quickly that
renewable capacity has trouble keeping
up, especially in rural areas,
especially out outside of places where
renewables are are are typically the
case. So, I think that currently the
emphasis is build faster, build bigger,
and they don't want to wait around for
solar or wind, which is why um
essentially most uh the data centers
that are coming online as quickly are
essentially bringing in turbines on the
back of trucks, natural gas. It's it's
like bring your bring your own energy uh
essentially and most of that is and they
have the money
>> is non-renewable.
>> I mean these companies
>> they have the money
>> they have the money but actually
currently there's a bottleneck even when
you have the money because there's not
enough turbines to to power all these
data centers because there's there's a
backlog nowadays and and even these uh
these turbines can't be produced fast
enough to to respond to demand. Palmy at
Bloomberg recently you highlighted an
issue in Northern Spain um with the data
center build out there which has
actually been held up as a a model for
the rest of Europe but for the people
who live around these projects the
reality is sometimes very different why
>> I think it's a common story we're also
seeing in the United States a lot of
push back from local residents in areas
where companies want to build data
centers and in northern Spain um there
have been uh the situation is that AWS
which is the cloud business of Amazon um
sent letters to local people um saying
we want to buy your land, giving them
sometimes 4 days notice to say yes or
no. Um and some of these people in in in
northern Spain actually thought it was a
scam at first. Um one lady went to her
local town hall and even they didn't
know. So, it's a real um kind of land
grab almost to try and get land that is
relatively cheap in an area where energy
costs are relatively low and that are
sparssely populated as well. It seems
like an ideal situation for building a
data center, but at the same time there
is the reality for people who do live
there and there are people who live
there um that they have to give up that
land or maybe the suddenly you've got
this eyes sore in a place that you've
lived in for many generations. If you're
in a community like that though and
you've already struggled to to get
natural resources or to to to get
electricity to get yourselves on the
grid, does the arrival of a big AI
company help in that process? Perhaps it
it could help a community
>> in some respects. And the funny part in
that is that governments um local
governments often uh frame data center
buildouts as being great for jobs. Yeah.
But I think you're conflating in that
situation permanent jobs with
construction jobs which are temporary.
And so when you build out a data center,
you're you're going to hire me.
>> They're not are they not necessarily big
employers once the kit is there?
>> No, I think in a typical data center you
might have about 100 people, most of
them cleaners and security people. Um
whereas for the buildout, sure,
hundreds, maybe thousands of people, but
then that's only temporary.
>> All right, I'm going to bring in an
audience question quite early into the
program this week because it it it fits
what you're talking about. It's from
James in the UK. He says, "Sasha, AI
companies continue to minimize this
environmental impact." He points
specifically to Sam Alman's recent claim
that AI's water usage is minimal. James
says that's simply not true. He also
tells us that younger generations are
increasingly boycotting generative AI
for environmental reasons. So, here's
his question. Should mainstream media be
doing more to hold these companies to
account?
>> Definitely. Actually, a recent Guardian
study found that uh the big tech
companies were lobbying very very hard
against transparency to make sure that I
mean citing confidentiality to not
include any uh energy figures or water
figures about data centers and so we
we're we're seeing them play dirty and I
think it's time to ask for
accountability and I think that
especially in a time where people are
increasingly sustainability conscious so
so you know we make our decisions based
on on the environment and and ethical
concerns we need this information
whether it be for choosing one AI model
over the other for for using AI or not
using AI, right? There's there's lots of
decisions that we make on an everyday
basis that we just don't have the
information for. And especially since AI
has become such a common technology, we
definitely need these numbers and and
these companies have them. It's just a
matter of of giving them maybe positive
and and and less positive incentives for
sharing them.
>> Well, well, let's let's try and choose
to look at this positively because we're
all using the technology. We're going to
use it in our work. So we we need these
companies to be successful if we're if
we're going to employ AI fully. What
does a responsible data center look
like, Sasha?
>> So you can definitely create them in a
way that's u more integrated in the
existing infrastructure. So currently um
the data centers are being built out in
a very kind of bigger is better kind of
way. So typically they're outside of
cities, they're huge like warehouse
sized um but they can really be
integrated like the smaller data centers
can be in basement. Um, the heat can be
reused to heat office buildings or
university campuses. It's much easier to
use renewable energy or or a mix at
least of of renewable energy if if
there's less capacity that's needed.
>> You think it that maybe part of this
answer is then partnering with other
companies,
>> partnering and rethinking the paradigm.
So, currently it's like we need the
biggest data centers, we need sovereign
AI, we need, you know, bigger, let's
build it out. Even in like I mean in
Canada it's the same thing. We need our
own data center. Let's let's build it
out. But instead of thinking of that as
as the the you know when you have a
hammer everything's a nail I think we
should be thinking about the nails that
we have and thinking about okay so what
do we need this data center for? Is it
for a university? Is it for a private
company? Is there a way of for example
incentivizing uh some mix of renewables
or or for example helping them build it
out in a way that isn't you know bring
your own turbine on a on a on a truck
kind of situation. And so I think there
are ways of being more more agile if we
rethink our way of of doing AI. And it's
not only for data sensors. Same thing
for AI models. Instead of being like we
need the biggest, we need the most
energy intensive model for every single
task. We can have smaller models for
example ondevice models. Uh instead of
having every query be dispatched to the
cloud, we can have AI models running
locally on our smartphones and and
computers. So I think we should really
be rethinking a little bit the way that
we design and deploy AI currently.
>> A quick question just to um satisfy my
curiosity, Sasha. Um quick answers if
you could. There are some country uh
companies that are developing these air
cooling systems to reduce water
consumption. Do they work?
>> Yes, but it's often a trade-off of using
more energy and less water. So often um
it's true that you can for example
recycle water. So essentially water gets
cycled through and it heats up and you
have to cool it down. So either you need
uh cooling towers or sometimes you know
you cool it down with energy with
electricity. And so it's often a
trade-off where they're using more
energy but but less water. It's a closed
loop system.
>> Yeah. And at the outset you you said
that very often these data centers are
outstripping what the renewable industry
can provide for them. But there are good
examples and I wanted to point to them
where data centers have been cited very
close to renewable energy. So Iceland is
using geothermal, Norway using
hydroelectric. Is that an example that
other countries should be following?
>> Yes. But I think that um very few
countries I mean uh in in the current
state of things have that extra capacity
and also if these data centers continue
to be so like for example if a data
center uses as much energy as 100,000
homes um there's very few grids
renewable grids that can take that that
can provide that energy on such a short
notice. Even for example in Quebec where
I live we have hydro but we don't have
the extra capacity for you know in two
years an extra 100 thousand homes to be
built. It has to be gradual. And so it's
really the timelines that often don't
line up. And this is why natural gas is
the cheapest, fastest solution. And and
often there are long-term plans. Often
it's like, well, in 10 years we're going
to do renewables. In 10 years, we're
going to do this. But in the meantime,
it adds a lot of emissions.
>> Okay. Well, you might have questions on
what you've been hearing about data
centers. You might have some strong
thoughts on it. AI decoded atbc.co.uk.
Now, since Stephanie has been focusing
on clarity and regulation, I've got a
story for her. Um, let me show you some
images. Uh, these are images that look
entirely real, but the people in them
are fake.
>> My Coachella week was so much fun. Let
me take you around. It's a secret. You
can be in Coachella as me just by a few
prompts. Stay with me till the end for
the prompts.
They are computerenerated influencers
uh who were seen photographed on
Instagram alongside some of the most
famous people at Coachella uh which is
those in the know will know is this very
trendy music festival in the desert in
one of the desert valleys in California.
How many of those engaging in these
photographs knew that uh the people they
were pictured alongside were fake? I
would suggest not very many. I'm not
even sure that Coachella knew that there
were fake influences uh in the crowd.
Stephanie, we've talked about this on
the program before about AI generated
beauty, the impact it has on young
people. This for me, actually, I was
reading about it this week. This feels
like the next chapter of that.
>> Yeah. And again, the law is just not fit
for purpose on this. I think we're
really going to have to get to a point
where we have laws on the books that say
if you have someone that's pre
pretending to be a human being, it has
to be labeled. It just has to because
you're dealing with children first of
all, so like anyone that's under the age
of 18 needs to be protected, but you've
also dealing with older people. You're
also dealing with the potential for
scam, for fraud, for misinformation and
disinformation. So this would just solve
a lot of things.
>> Pommy, who's behind these images? What
do they what do they want? From what I
understand, it is mostly agencies. It's
not, you know, it's not a cottage
industry of people working from home.
There are, you know, agencies most of
the time in in Europe, in places like
London, um, and on the continent who are
producing these as branding exercises
and as an opportunity for a brand to get
a sponsorship. But for Yeah, absolutely.
Um, if you think about it, an influencer
um who has a brand sponsorship deal will
be quite costly because if they want to
go to Coachella, they want to go
business class maybe. Um, they want to
get a hotel, they want to get some other
freebies. But if you have an influencer
who you are sponsoring to hold your can
of whatever in the photograph, um,
they're not going to have a bad day or
get old or look weird in the photo.
They're always going to look great. It's
funny, ahead of this program, I actually
looked at some of these influencers who
were in Coachella in Coachella and it
was amazing like one of them had about
170,000 followers and had it was
pictures of her with Justin Bieber um
with the Kardashians with Madonna and no
one in the comments was saying this
isn't real. They were all the comments
were kind of congratulatory
um and there was no disclosure at all on
the Instagram profile that it was AI
generated. So I think a lot of people in
good faith would look at it and think
this is really
>> the obvious problem is Sasha that the
very famous person who's gone to
Coachella can say to someone who might
be advertising kryptonite next to them
look I don't want to be advertising
kryptonite and they can push them away.
They have no choice. They have no say in
in an AI generated person being put next
to them in a photograph that they pose
for unknowingly.
>> Yeah. In a in a world of AI agents,
humans lose their own agency. I think to
some extent and especially famous people
because there's so many likenesses of
them on the internet that it's very very
easy to generate a false image or video
now of of a celebrity.
>> Didn't Stephanie, didn't we talk about
New York bringing in new regulation to
stop this? I think you had to put on
your website whether you were you were
using an AI generated influencer, but
there's I mean some of these pictures
from Coachella do do that, but plenty of
them don't.
>> Yeah. And that's the enforcement thing.
Like there are all sorts of laws that
are obvious
>> from state to state is different. Right.
>> Exactly. And how you know whose job is
it to police that and how are they able
to get the accountability that they
need? So again this is a case of if you
were to take them to court that's going
to take years right it's going to cost a
lot of money etc. So it's kind of like
everything that we saw about
accountability with social media not
being very effective.
>> I mean Coachella themselves could just
say enough. You can't do this. It's up
to the organizer.
>> They absolutely could. And I think, you
know, what you mentioned earlier about
the uh the celebrities, you might want
to just play the world's tiniest violin
for these people for being in these
photographs and potentially compromising
situations. But I mean, ultimately, if
they do get upset and if the brands get
upset, I think that's perhaps going to
be potentially even more effective than
actual regulation in um in getting
enforcement. So,
>> what about the platforms though? I mean,
in Instagram, Tik Tok, they're profiting
from these engagements.
>> Yes. And um technically on these
platforms you're you are supposed to
disclose if something is AI generated.
The fact is nobody actually follows that
rule. And Meta does have um automated
systems that will try and look for
things that are AI generated and tag
them. But it's an almost impossible task
because there's hundreds of thousands of
posts made every day and many many many
are slipping through the net. Now the
thing is it is possible if they really
wanted to. There are ways to put um a
cryptographic signature on actual
photographic images um called CP2A. Um
but that's just not something that the
tech companies are investing in because
if you think about it, there is a
commercial incentive to just let this
carry on because to to your point
earlier, do people actually like this?
Weirdly, the public don't hate AI
avatars. They're kind of okay with it
>> if they know. I mean, how many people
really know? because some of these are
really good and they're getting better.
>> I think that's just going to make it
harder to to deal with.
>> So weird. Everyone talks about being
authentic and brands are all about your
values and then they do this stuff
that's so fake and people eat it up.
>> Weird.
>> Do we still call California the Wild
West? No, maybe not.
>> But this is the Wild West.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
>> Now, the late Val Kilmer was one of the
greats. Do we agree on that?
>> Yeah. Top Gun Batman forever.
>> Real genius.
>> Yeah. The Doors. I liked him in that. uh
one of the Hollywood uh greats, one of
the versatile actors of Hollywood as
well. And he died a year ago, as many of
you will know, age 65 after a long and
sad battle with throat cancer. But he
had been cast in a film uh a few years
earlier. It's called As Deep as the
Grave. It's a historical drama about uh
the American Southwest. And uh of
course, he didn't make it to set because
he was he was too ill at the end. But
this week, the trailer for that movie
debuted at Cineacon in Las Vegas. He's
in it. And every scene in which he is in
and every line that he speaks, of
course, is generated entirely by AI.
>> Is me.
Hey, hey,
hey.
Hey,
>> don't fear the dead and don't fear me.
His children gave their blessing to this
Stephanie. Um, and just so everybody
knows, the filmmakers followed the
guidelines, spoke to the unions. Kilmer,
in fact, himself uh embraced AI in his
final movie, Top Gun Maverick. uh his
his voice was recreated by AI, so he
wasn't oblivious to this.
Is this the blueprint, do you think, for
for for AI in Hollywood, an ethical way
of using it, or does it for you open a
door that we can't close?
>> I think it's just about choice. So, I
like the idea that if directors and
other artists want to experiment with
AI, that they are doing so mindfully,
that they're trying to come up with an
ethical standard that is no doubt going
to be discussed and may eventually be
formalized. I also think it's really
important for any creative person who
doesn't want their likeness, their
biometrics or their creative output to
be used in this way to be able to say
no. Right? So in that case for anybody
who's a Hollywood actor listening and
watching our show as we know they are
>> um they would want to be all the way
they want to be speaking with their
agents and with their team and their
lawyers to be really clear about that.
So you know how do you want your
likeness being used while you're alive
and then how do you want it being used
after your death. So in this case Bal
Kilmer's children were fine with it. His
estate's fine with it and everything was
done with everyone being I think as
ethical as they can be. Other actors
have made different choices. C can I
just say Stephanie for the record that
if you're going to use my likeness for
AI decoded into the future I am happy
for that so long as you pay the
royalties to my estate just on the
record so we're all cleared.
>> Um Sasha I mean obviously Hollywood
Hollywood actors are are a gift aren't
they for AI because there's there's
hundreds of hours of film of them.
They've been in lots of performances. Uh
and so in fact I think this performance
that Kilmer in of this movie was it was
reconstructed from 40 films hundreds of
hours of footage. So as long as you
signed up to this sky's is the limit.
>> I think that's a very hard ethical
question. Um I've seen a lot of papers.
I even saw a theater play on this topic
especially after death actually. I think
that's a really important point. Uh who
can opt in? How can you opt out if
you're dead? Um, and also what does this
mean for the community? Because if
there's peer pressure, for example, and
I think that actually AI was one of the
one of the sticking points during the
strikes a couple of years ago, right?
Uh, to what extent is there is there
union pressure? Is there community
pressure to opt in? Can you can you
continue opting out in this new new
world, right? And it's it's similar to
what a lot of workers are facing as
well. Um, I'm hearing a lot of people
being like, well, I'm forced to use AI
in my in my workplace. We even have
dashboards for tracking it. And so, it's
really this pressure that we're seeing
to use AI. And I think that that does uh
uh make people give up some of their
individual choices if they feel
pressured to. So for example, if you're
a young actor and you want to uh you
know make your make a name for yourself,
but you don't want to use AI but you
have this peer pressure around you, can
you really opt out without having a
negative impact on your career?
>> Yeah. Yeah. And and I think um Hollywood
has already this history of recycling
old films and making sequels and making
remakes. And I think there is already
this tendency to want to maximize
profits by going back to whatever works.
And if that's the incentive driving the
remake of an actor who has died, I think
in the end that can actually put younger
fresh talent out of work if it's just
the kind of the same icons appearing
over and over again for the next 100
years. Um, and to Sasha's point as well,
I think where that pressure comes from,
like I've spoken to a company that does
virtual reality concerts or Avatar
concerts, um, and they have had pressure
from the families of artists who have
died to try and recreate the the the
deceased artist for a concert,
>> not knowing whether there's consent or
not for that.
>> And it's a very gray area. It's a very
because we're talking about people who
died maybe 10 20 years ago, icons um
putting pressure on them as a it's a new
revenue source for the family left
behind for the estate.
>> We're out of time. Pie uh Sasha
Stephanie, thank you very much indeed.
Um uh AI decoded next week. Uh we think
Scott Galloway is coming on. I'm putting
that out there so he does come on next
week. Um so do tune in for that. If you
have any thoughts on anything we've
discussed, uh do email us aidbc.co.uk.
UK. And I'm going to put on screen for
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If you scan the QR code, you'll be able
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don't forget if you want to watch us
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that's all the housekeeping. Thank you
very much for watching. Thank you to our
guests this week. We'll see you next
time.