Can we AI our way to a more sustainable world?

Technical advancement is moving at such a rapid pace that it can be challenging to define the tomorrow we’re working toward. In The Shape of Things to Come, Microsoft Research leader Doug Burger and experts from across disciplines tease out the thorniest AI issues facing technologists, policymakers, business decisionmakers, and other stakeholders today. The goal: to amplify the shared understanding needed to build a future in which the AI transition is a net positive. In this episode, Burger is joined by Amy Luers, head of sustainability science and innovation at Microsoft, and Ishai Menache, an optimization researcher at Microsoft Research, to explore how AI can both contribute to and help address climate change, emphasizing the need to separate hype from data and understand its real impact. While datacenters account for a small share of global emissions, their rapid growth raises…