Taking the Temperature of AI: Measuring AI’s Environmental Impact

In this episode of the show, I talk to Dr. Tamara Kneese about Data and Society's initiative to develop standards and ways to measure the environmental impact of AI. I talk to Dr. Kneese about her work at the Algorithmic Impact Methods Lab (AIMLab), we talk about the links and frictions between tech and climate change, and we consider how AI may be changing how we experience not only life, but also our experience of death.

Dr. Tamara Kneese is Project Director of Data & Society’s Algorithmic Impact Methods Lab, where she is also a Senior Researcher. For the 2023-2024 academic year, she's a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society. Before joining D&S, she was Lead Researcher at Green Software Foundation, Director of Developer Engagement on the Green Software team at Intel, and Assistant Professor of Media Studies and Director of Gender and Sexualities Studies at the University of San Francisco.

Dr. Kneese holds a PhD in Media, Culture and Communication from NYU and is the author of Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond. In her spare time, she is a volunteer with Tech Workers Coalition.