Markey speaks earlier this week. Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Accountable Tech
Sen. Ed Markey is going after artificial intelligence's environmental impacts.
Why it matters: Markey's usually got the pulse of climate activists. If he is targeting an industry, that often means it's become a priority for them.
Driving the news: Markey introduced legislation Thursday that would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to make a rubric for analyzing AI's environmental impacts.
- The bill would also require an interagency study of AI's environmental pros and cons.
- It'll be cosponsored by Wyden and Sens. Martin Heinrich, Peter Welch and Alex Padilla.
Reality check: A bill like this can have difficulty becoming law without bipartisan support and/or hitching a ride on a larger legislative vehicle. But with "idea" bills that's not always the point.
The big picture: This bill is part of a wider push across the activist space and academia to focus on AI's role in a decarbonizing world.
- On the one hand, AI can help with reducing emissions by easing the manpower burden needed to scrutinize energy use. On the other, like with cryptocurrency, AI demands a lot of power.
- The federal government is now asking crypto miners for energy data, so it wouldn't be a shock to see the same requested of the AI space.
Our thought bubble, from Axios AI+'s Ryan Heath: While inefficiency should be avoided and measuring energy use is always helpful, significant energy use by AI systems is not inherently bad.
- Powerful AI can see patterns, or propose materials and compounds, or optimize energy use in ways that have very positive environmental impacts.
