The Political Economy of Compute: Provocations and Pathways

About

This talk reflects on the work of the Sustainable AI Futures project. Debates about AI and climate are often highly polarised, with both advocates and critics relying on methodologically weak statistics that can give a misleading sense of precision. As a transdisciplinary issue with broad social relevance, AI and climate demand careful attention to the limits of available evidence, alongside a stronger role for technical specialists as educators and communicators. Recent efforts to estimate the net impact of AI on the climate can be understood as a response to this polarisation. However, these approaches are often constrained by the uncritical adoption of assumptions and conceptual frameworks shaped by US-centric big tech. At the same time, an AI backlash has gathered pace, and alternative futures are being articulated that seek closer alignment with the needs of people and planet, though these remain underexamined. AI-related emissions also need to be more clearly situated within total global emissions, and supported by more robust and explicit theories of change. This talk offers a set of provocations, proposes gaps and challenges, and even draws on science fiction and art, in order to open up a broader conversation about sustainable computing in research and beyond.

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