NY Renews AI Policy
We echo Climate Families’ position on generative AI:
The AI boom is fueling fossil fuel expansion and climate collapse. The Center for Biological Diversity came out with a report this fall showing that AI growth is undermining our climate goals by driving fossil fuel expansion. Just 11 gas-powered data centers for companies like Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft and XAi and others are projected to emit more greenhouse gases than entire nations. MIT researchers estimate that by 2026, the electricity consumption of data centers will rival that of whole countries like Japan or Russia. Much of this demand is being met by fossil fuels: A report in Wired found that less than a dozen gas plants being built to power data centers for big tech companies like Meta and OpenAI could emit a maximum of nearly 130 million tons of CO2e each year, more than entire large nations. The high demand for energy from AI and cryptocurrency mining is slowing or stopping the closure of polluting coal plants and giving politicians justification for approving the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure (case in point: AI-loving Hochul’s approval of the Williams Pipeline).
This massive energy footprint is increasing utility bills and raising our greenhouse gas emissions at a moment when we should be shuttering fossil fuel infrastructure. The need to cool large data centers associated with AI requires significant fresh water usage; drinking water is often used, while climate change is driving more frequent droughts. New Yorkers are already facing fossil-fueled impacts like air pollution, flooding, and extreme heat, all of which disproportionately harm people of color, unhoused people, and low-income people. Reflecting longstanding environmental racism, highly polluting data centers are often cited in majority Black and brown communities. At present, the world is on track for a catastrophic 2.8 degrees of warming by 2100, but this projection fails to account for the current trajectory of AI and data center growth (as in the record-setting growth of gas power to fuel AI in 2025). The race to expand AI infrastructure also puts New York State’s legally binding emissions reduction goals further out of reach and threatens to push us closer to irreversible climate tipping points, putting people at risk of unimaginable disasters, famine, and mass displacement.
While Big Tech claims corporate AI will get more efficient, its profit model is based on unlimited growth. Even more efficient AI will require data centers that tax the grid, keep fossil fuel projects online, and consume our drinking water at a critical moment when we must both electrify major infrastructure and shut down fossil fuel production for the sake of life on earth. We also know there are some lifesaving uses of AI, such as in scientific research and medicine, and that some AI uses less energy than others. But the majority of AI energy-intensive use, from chatbots to image generation, is for things we don’t need, and in many cases, things we don’t want.
Our approach: As always, we focus on power, system change, and collective action. We know that we have members who willingly or unwillingly engage with AI for work, school or other reasons, just like we all are forced to use fossil fuels in our daily life, whether for transit, our homes, or other purposes. The current climate and environmental crisis exacerbated by the AI boom is the responsibility of the billionaires and millionaires at the helm of big tech who are fighting regulation, steamrolling and destroying communities, and selling out our kids’ futures for profit. In other words, unless you’re a tech mogul, this crisis is not your fault. But we believe it is our collective responsibility to fight back.
We take issue with the AI industrial complex at large rather than with the technology itself. This article by Vu Lee covers how the industry:
Harming marginalized communities
Traumatizing people, especially women of color in poorer countries
Supporting fascism
Destroying the livelihoods of artists
& much more
These effects exemplify how the industry, and the use of generative AI, is antithetical to the NY Renews’ Points of Unity. Additionally, we have concerns about the use of the technology’s deep integration with the surveillance state. NY Renews does not want to sacrifice our own or our supporters’ anonymity and confidentiality with their personal information.
We see there is a distinction and even an opportunity for the real use of AI as a tool for accessibility and disability justice. In that realm, there may be cases where coalition staff use specific tools that are supportive for administrative organization, workflow, and supportive of disabled staff and staff members with disabilities. Unfortunately, many commonly used technologies have built-in AI tools that we cannot opt out of. This might look like using:
Closed captioning, transcription, and translation during virtual meetings (note: transcripts are not saved to “the cloud,” for security reasons)
AI-powered software to facilitate the creation of to-do lists, assist with prioritization and task breakdown, and support the summarization of pre-existing bodies of work (without generating new information)
Checking for or changing “tone” in written communications (to support neurodivergent staff members for whom that support is useful)
Spell-checking or grammar-checking written materials
As a result, we:
Support a statewide and national moratorium on new data centers. Read more here.
Will not intentionally use generative AI as an organization* for any purpose. Given that AI is embedded in so many programs and services without user consent, we will do this to the best of our ability, and recognize there may be times when we unknowingly or unwillingly use AI functions.
Will not allow AI notetakers in any online meetings we host.
Will share news and images from trusted human sources to the best of our ability.
*By AI, we are referring to Large Language Models and Vision language models, for organizational purposes.
Learn more, cited from Climate Families: