Troy Wolverton

"For all its promised benefits, the artificial-intelligence boom is likely to prove costly to public health and even lead to hundreds of deaths a year in the U.S. alone, and those ill effects are likely to disproportionately hit poorer communities, according to a study by California esearchers (sic) that’s believed to be among the first of its kind.

"AI affects public health via air pollution created as a consequence of operating the data centers used to train and run the technology, researchers at UC Riverside and the California Institute of Technology laid out in their report “The Unpaid Toll: Quantifying the Public Health Impact of AI,” published in December.

"Demand for computing power for AI models is prompting the construction of increasing numbers of data centers. 

"The manufacturing of chips and other hardware used in those facilities, the fossil-fuel power plants often used to provide electricity to them, and the typically diesel-powered backup generators used to keep them running during power outages or times of high electricity demand all generate air pollution, the researchers noted in their study.

"The researchers said exposure to that air pollution —in the form of particulates, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide —can lead to maladies such as lung cancer, asthma and cardiovascular disease, and premature deaths. 

"Already disadvantaged communities are likely to absorb much of that pollution."