AI-Solutionism as Fetishistic Disavowal
The Bottleneck Is Not Cognitive AI-Solutionism as Fetishistic Disavowal In February 2025, Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft’s Chief Sustainability Officer, published a blog post explaining that her company’s emissions had risen 23.4% since 2020, the year it pledged to be carbon negative by 2030. The pledge, she wrote, was a “moonshot.” Now, “the moon has gotten further away.” The cause was artificial intelligence. The solution, she wrote, was also artificial intelligence. Five months earlier, Sam Altman published “The Intelligence Age,” in which he listed “fixing the climate” among the “astounding triumphs” superintelligence would render commonplace. Dario Amodei’s Machines of Loving Grace said the same thing in a more cautious register. Demis Hassabis has been saying it since 2023. ...