Gates on A I – He Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

In a recent hour-long interview, Bill Gates Warns that A.I. is more dangerous than Big Tech will admit.  I don’t think that is a surprise to any of us. After all, Gates is part of Big Tech, although he is one of the exceptional techies that isn’t convinced that Big Tech should rule over all.  To be fair, Gates has done a lot of good in the world with his philanthropy, and in his recent interview, he has laid out the things that we should be worried about with A I as well as some of the potential benefits of A I.

However, the picture he presents is far from complete.  What he fails to describe is what individuals and communities are already suffering from data centers which are the indispensable supports for A I.  As we all know, data centers require huge amounts of electric power, often causing electric rates for consumers to rise.  Data centers cause noise and heat pollution in the communities where they are located.  They also use huge amounts of water, and the water they discharge is polluted and can no longer be used.

That’s what’s happening here in the U.S.  But A I, data centers, and high tech more broadly are causing huge suffering in other parts of the world.  NPR’s podcast Throughline has been covering one of these situations. The following is some of what Throughline has revealed:

Consider the mineral cobalt. Cobalt is primarily used in data centers to enhance memory and logic devices, supporting high-performance computing and A I workloads.  Where does cobalt come from? The DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) dominates global cobalt mining, producing approximately 200,800 to 230,000 metric tons in recent years, which accounts for nearly 70–74% of the world’s supply.

Conditions in these cobalt mines are horrendous. The miners are exposed to toxic dust and chemicals.  They are paid very minimal wages—just enough to keep them alive and able to work.  Also, children labor alongside adult men and women in these mines, a situation not allowed in most nations. In the DRC, these miners have basically two choices: either starve to death or work in the cobalt mines that could kill you at any time.

If this sounds like slavery, you’re right.  That’s what it is.  It recalls the days of the Belgian Congo when King Leopold’s regime basically enslaved the people there to harvest rubber.  If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild.  The book describes in graphic detail the suffering of the Congolese under Belgian colonial rule.  This same kind of cruelty is going on today in the Congolese cobalt mines.

Who to blame for this? Sure the high tech billionaires, but what part do WE have in all this?  Our cell phones and our computers rely on cobalt. Our electric cars and our lithium battery-run devices need cobalt.  A I and data centers are just the most recent large-scale users of cobalt.

Perhaps the lesson from all this is that as we address environmental challenges, we must also address social justice challenges. Our actions have consequences.  Our consumer habits can adversely affect the less wealthy and the less powerful in our own country, and they can support horrendous injustice in far-away places like the DRC. 

As people of faith and good conscience, it is our obligation to face our own complicity in this; and most importantly, we must work to make the changes that will break the chains of oppression – both here and abroad.

Also Recommended: Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara.