The Download: Big Tech’s climate claims, and reducing your music streaming carbon footprint

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Google, Amazon and the problem with Big Tech’s climate claims

Last week, Amazon trumpeted that it had purchased enough clean electricity to cover the energy demands of all its global operations, seven years ahead of its sustainability target. 

That news closely followed Google’s acknowledgment that the soaring energy demands of its AI operations helped ratchet up its corporate emissions by 13% last year—and that it had backed away from claims that it was already carbon neutral.

If you were to take the announcements at face value, you’d be forgiven for believing that Google is stumbling while Amazon is speeding ahead in the race to clean up climate pollution. 

But while both companies are coming up short in their own ways, Google’s approach to driving down greenhouse-gas emissions is now arguably more defensible. To learn why, read our story.

—James Temple

This piece is part of MIT Technology Review Explains, our series untangling the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here.

Five ways to make music streaming better for the climate

As K-pop sweeps the world and accumulates a massive, devout fan base, these fans have been turning their power into action. Zeyi Yang, our China reporter, recently published a story about Kpop4planet, a group of activists who are using K-pop’s influence to hold large corporations accountable for their carbon footprints.

During his reporting, he talked to several experts about how to correctly understand the climate impact of music streaming, and one thing became clear: It all comes down to how we stream—the content, the device, the length, etc. Read on for their tips to help any music streaming user leave a smaller carbon footprint.

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter examining the relationship between tech and power in the country. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Donald Trump’s allies are already working on a sweeping AI order 
Which many AI investors in Silicon Valley would favor over President Biden’s approach. (WP $)
+ Elon Musk is among the first big names in tech to pledge support for Trump. (WSJ $)
+ Trump’s former FDA commissioner wants to peer inside AI’s black boxes. (Politico)

2 TikTok’s attempt to swerve the EU’s Digital Markets Act has been dismissed
The EU’s General Court ruled TikTok was powerful enough to have to comply. (Bloomberg $)
+ It’s good news for European antitrust regulators. (Reuters)
+ Here’s what you need to know about the Digital Markets Act. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Bitcoin miners are signing deals with AI firms
Putting all those vast data centers to good use. (FT $)
+ How Bitcoin mining devastated this New York town. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Amazon’s Prime Day sale causes a spike in injuries among warehouse workers
A new report accuses the company of prioritizing speed over safety. (WSJ $)
+ Not everything that looks like a deal is, in fact, a deal. (The Atlantic $)

5 We’re learning more about how deadly pancreatic cancer spreads
The disease shuts down molecules in key genes. (The Guardian)
+ An AI-based risk prediction system could help catch pancreatic cancer cases earlier. (MIT Technology Review)’

6 The Milky Way is full of free-floating planets
These scientists are on a mission to track these rogue worlds down. (IEEE Spectrum)

7 Beware the rise of fake AI-powered therapists
It’s just one example among a rising wave of AI scams. (Vice)
+ Five ways criminals are using AI. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Black women are listing their race as white on dating apps
And report receiving higher-quality matches as a result. (NY Mag $)

9 The JWST just celebrated its second year in space
And the photographs it captures are still awe-inspiring. (The Atlantic $)

10 Lab-grown meat for pets has been green-lit in the UK
For the discerning pet palate. (Wired $)
+ Here’s what a lab-grown burger tastes like. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“This country is on fire, Mr. Altman.”

—Jennifer Loving, who runs a nonprofit that administers basic-income pilot programs in Silicon Valley, tells OpenAI CEO Sam Altman it’s time to act on all the research into guaranteed income, the New York Times reports.

The big story

This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it.

September 2022

Greg Rutkowski is a Polish digital artist who uses classical styles to create dreamy landscapes. His distinctive style has been used in some of the world’s most popular fantasy games, including Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.

Now he’s become a hit in the new world of text-to-image AI generation. His name is one of the most commonly used prompts in the open-source AI art generator Stable Diffusion.

But this and other open-source programs are built by scraping images from the internet, often without permission and proper attribution to artists. And artists like Rutkowski have had enough. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Here’s a great reminder of just how beautiful the night sky is.
+ If you didn’t already know, it’s officially a brat summer.
+ The Ancient Olympic Games was a serious sporting affair.
+ If you tend to forget most of the TV shows you watch or books you read: fear not. You’re not alone. ($)