E-waste is a moral problem

With the advent of Bitcoin and AI, data center waste grows even faster. Bitcoin computers have ultra-short lives. They are highly customized and cannot be used for anything else. “AI training is a temporary or one-off process,” Christopher Tozzi wrote for Data Center Knowledge. “Once an AI model has completed its training, it doesn’t need to train again, unless its developers want to ‘teach’ it new information. This means that training generative AI models is likely to result in the deployment of GPU-enabled servers for which there is not sustained demand.” Add to this the speed of innovation of AI, which means that hardware is replaced and dumped at increasingly frantic rates. Innovation equals waste. The faster the innovation, the faster the waste piles up.

E-waste is a moral problem, an ethical problem, Kaustubh Thapa told me. When we spoke, Kaustubh was finishing his PhD at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He is one of those sweet, kind souls. His very voice rings with the bell of kindness and goodwill for all. His collaborative research on e-waste in Nigeria, China and Vietnam incorporated principles of justice, equity,