—Yoav Shoham is a professor emeritus at Stanford College and cofounder of AI21 Labs.
At Google’s I/O 2025 occasion in Might, the corporate confirmed off a digital assistant that didn’t simply reply questions; it helped work on a bicycle restore by discovering an identical person guide, finding a YouTube tutorial, and even calling an area retailer to ask a few half, all with minimal human nudging. Such capabilities may quickly prolong far exterior the Google ecosystem.
The imaginative and prescient is thrilling: Clever software program brokers that act like digital coworkers, reserving your flights, rescheduling conferences, submitting bills, and speaking to one another behind the scenes to get issues completed.
But when we’re not cautious, we’re going to derail the entire thought earlier than it has an opportunity to ship actual advantages. As with many tech traits, there’s a danger of hype racing forward of actuality. And when expectations get out of hand, a backlash isn’t far behind. Learn the complete story.
Google’s electrical energy demand is skyrocketing
We acquired two massive items of power information from Google this week. The corporate introduced that it’s signed an settlement to buy electrical energy from a fusion firm’s forthcoming first energy plant. Google additionally launched its newest environmental report, which exhibits that its power use from knowledge facilities has doubled since 2020.
Taken collectively, these two bits of stories supply an enchanting have a look at simply how desperately massive tech corporations are trying to find clear electrical energy to energy their knowledge facilities as power demand and emissions balloon within the age of AI. After all, we don’t know precisely how a lot of this air pollution is attributable to AI as a result of Google doesn’t break that out. (Additionally an issue!) So, what’s subsequent and what does this all imply?
—Casey Crownhart
This text is from The Spark, MIT Know-how Assessment’s weekly local weather e-newsletter. To obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday, join right here.
+ To learn extra about whether or not nuclear power can be a viable method to energy the AI growth, take a look at Casey’s latest article, which is a part of Energy Hungry: AI and our power future—our new sequence shining a lightweight on the power calls for and carbon prices of the unreal intelligence revolution. You possibly can check out the remainder of the package deal right here.
