앨 고어 전 미국 부통령이 테크크런치와의 인터뷰에서 AI 데이터센터의 배출량보다 업계 지도자들의 종말론적 경고에 주목해야 한다고 말했다. 그는 전 세계 AI 데이터센터 배출량이 뚜껑 없는 쓰레기 매립지 배출량의 일부에 불과하며, 에어컨 수요 증가가 그리드에 더 큰 부담을 줄 것이라고 지적했다. 또한 다리오 아모데이, 샘 알트만, 일론 머스크의 AI 속도 조절 경고를 진심으로 받아들여야 한다고 강조했다.
번역된 본문
앨 고어는 기후 운동에서 가장 잘 알려진 목소리 중 하나로 20년 이상 활동해왔기에, 그가 AI에 대해 이야기할 때 그가 진정으로 무섭다고 여기는 것에 귀 기울일 가치가 있다. 그리고 그것은 사람들이 거리에서 데이터센터 반대 시위를 벌이게 만드는 것이 아니다.
이번 주 테크크런치와의 인터뷰에서 고어는 자신들의 투자사 제너레이션 인베스트먼트 매니지먼트(Generation Investment Management)의 성장주식 책임자인 릴라 프레스턴과 함께, 환경적 영향에 대한 반대가 커지고 있음에도 AI 데이터센터의 배출량이 사람들을 밤잠 못 이루게 할 일은 아니라고 말했다. 그의 관점에서 사람들이 더 우려해야 할 것은 AI 업계 내부에서 나오는 경고들이며, 그는 이를 진지하게 받아들인다.
이는 고어에게 새로운 입장이 아니다. 예를 들어 지난 5월 그는 다른 매체에 AI 데이터센터를 "깊은 우려의 대상이지만 공포의 대상은 아니다"라고 표현했으며, 이번 주 대화에서도 배출량에 관한 그의 핵심 논점은 규모의 문제였다.
"전 세계 모든 AI 데이터센터의 배출량을 합쳐도 전 세계 뚜껑 없는 매립지에서 나오는 배출량의 일부에 불과합니다"라고 그는 말하며, 비슷한 규모의 인프라 확충이 훨씬 적은 주목을 받는 다른 것, 즉 에어컨과 연결되어 있다고 덧붙였다.
이는 타당한 지적이다(그리고 AI 랩들이 도시·주 정부와의 논의에서 아직 활용하지 않고 있다면 활용해야 할 논거다). 국제에너지기구(IEA)는 전 세계 에어컨이 이미 연간 유럽연합 전체보다 많은 전력을 소비하는 것으로 추정하며, 세계에서 가장 덥고 가장 빠르게 성장하는 지역의 보급률이 아직 15% 미만인 상황에서 이 수요는 2050년까지 3배로 증가할 것으로 예상되어, 같은 기간 AI 데이터센터보다 전력망에 훨씬 큰 압박을 가할 것이다.
고어는 이런 데이터센터가 어떻게 전력을 공급받는지에 대한 우려를 가볍게 여기지 않는다. "일부 초대형 클라우드 사업자들이 새로운 메탄 터빈으로 뛰어드는 것은 깊은 우려 사항입니다"라고 그는 말했다. 하지만 그가 메탄 터빈에 대해 우려하는 것은 AI 워크로드가 수요를 주도한다는 점이라기보다, 그 수요를 충족하기 위해 새 가스 발전소를 짓는 것이 수십 년 더 화석연료 발전을 고착시킬 가능성이다.
"재생에너지와 배터리로 에너지 수요를 공급하는 기업들을 훨씬 선호합니다"라고 그는 이어가며, 재생에너지가 점점 가장 저렴한 선택지가 되어가는 단순한 이유로 더 많은 기업이 필연적으로 그 방향으로 이동할 것으로 기대한다고 말했다.
실제로 고어는 도시계획위원회 회의에서 벌어지는 공적 반발이 탄소 배출보다는 그리 멀지 않은 미래에 자동화가 사회를 뒤집을지 모른다는 불안과 더 관련이 있다고 본다. "미국 여러 지역에서 데이터센터에 대한 초당적 반대가 커지는 이유 중 일부는 일자리 상실과 OpenAI 및 Anthropic 내부 전문가들이 대중에게 경고하려 해온 다른 위협들에 대한 근본적인 우려 때문이라고 생각합니다"라고 그는 말했다.
우리는 또한 지난 일주일간 헤드라인을 장식한 AI 업계 지도자들의 경고의 물결에 대해 고어에게 추궁했다. 트럼프 대통령과 엔비디아 CEO 젠슨 황이 월요일 로스앤젤레스 컨퍼런스에서 이를 두고 함께 웃었지만(트럼프는 Anthropic CEO 다리오 아모데이가 AI 능력 향상 속도를 늦추자라고 공개적으로 촉구하고 샘 알트만과 일론 머스크가 즉시 동조한 것을 '조작된 사기'라고 주장했다), 고어는 이 경고를 액면 그대로 받아들인다고 말했다.
"한동안 일부는 이런 종말론적 경고가 일종의 기묘한 마케팅 전략이 아닐까 냉소적으로 의심하는 단계를 거쳤다고 생각합니다. 그랬다 하더라도 지금은 그렇지 않다고 봅니다"라고 그는 말했다. "다리오 아모데이가 매우 진심이라고 생각하며, 샘 알트만과 일론 머스크도 며칠 전 (아모데이의) 경고에 동조한 것이 진심이라고 생각합니다."
평소답게 고어는(그는 요점을 말할 때 문학, 성경, 대중철학을 자주 인용한다) 마야 앤젤루의 유명한 말을 인용했다. "누군가 자신이 누구인지 말할 때, 첫 번째에 믿어라."
그의 판단을 바꾼 요인 중 하나는 AI 시스템 자체의 최근 구체적인 행동이라고 그는 말하며, "최근 모델의 사례"를 지적했다.
Al Gore has spent more than two decades as one of the most recognizable voices in the climate movement, so when he talks about AI, it's worth paying attention to what he considers truly scary. And it isn't what has people protesting data centers in the streets. In an interview with TechCrunch this week alongside Lila Preston, head of growth equity at their investment firm Generation Investment Management, Gore said emissions from AI data centers aren't what should keep people up at night, despite the mounting opposition over their environmental impacts. What should concern people more, in his view, are the warnings coming from inside the AI industry itself, and he takes them seriously. It's not a new position for Gore. This past May, for example, he described AI data centers to another outlet as a "cause for deep concern, but not panic," and in our conversation this week, his central point about emissions was about scale. "If you look at the emissions of all of the AI data centers put together, it's only a fraction of the emissions from uncovered landfills in the world," he said, adding that a comparable build-out is tied to something that gets far less attention: air conditioning. It's a valid observation (and one the AI labs should be using in their discussions with cities and states if they aren't already). The International Energy Agency estimates that global air conditioning already consumes more electricity annually than the entire European Union, and with ownership still under 15% across the hottest, fastest-growing parts of the world, that demand is expected to triple by 2050, putting far more pressure on the grid than AI data centers over the same period. Gore isn't dismissive of concerns about how these data centers are being powered. "It is a matter of deep concern that some of the hyperscalers are jumping into new methane turbines," he said. But what worries him about methane turbines isn't the AI workload driving demand so much as the prospect that building new gas plants to meet that demand locks in decades more of fossil fuel generation. "I much prefer those that are supplying their energy needs with renewables and batteries," he continued, saying he expects more companies to move inexorably in that direction simply because renewables are increasingly the cheapest option available. In fact, Gore thinks the public backlash at planning-commission meetings has less to do with carbon emissions than with anxiety over automation upending society in the not-too-distant future. "I think that part of the reason for the growing bipartisan opposition to data centers in so many parts of the U.S. is being driven by the underlying concerns about job losses and some of the other threats that experts inside OpenAI and inside Anthropic have been trying to alert the public to," he said. We also pressed Gore on the wave of warnings from AI industry leaders that has dominated headlines over the last week. Though President Trump and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shared a laugh at their expense on Monday during a conference in Los Angeles (Trump suggested that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's public call to slow the pace of capability gains, quickly seconded by Sam Altman and Elon Musk, was a "hoax"), Gore said he takes the warnings at face value. "I think we went through a phase where some cynically suspected that the apocalyptic warnings were some kind of bizarre marketing strategy. If that was ever the case, I don't think it is now," he said. "I do think that Dario Amodei is very sincere, and I think that Sam Altman and Elon Musk were sincere in seconding [Amodei's] warning of a few days ago." Gore being Gore (he often reaches for literature, Scripture, and pop philosophy to make a point), he invoked Maya Angelou's well-known line: "When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time." Part of what's changed his calculus, he said, is recent, concrete behavior from AI systems themselves — pointing to "the recent example of models escaping confinement, collaborating secretly, covering their tracks, engaging in deceptive behavior," and noting that Anthropic has said it stopped instances of Claude being used to help develop biological weapons in different countries. That said, Gore doesn't treat AI risk and AI's climate potential as being in opposition. He cited a recent study from economist Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics projecting that AI applications aimed at efficiency and waste elimination could drive global emissions down by 6% to 9% per year starting next decade. If Gore's focus was risk, Preston's was where capital is already moving in response. She pointed to several fronts where the AI build-out itself is generating investable opportunities, not just consuming energy. Among these, the firm is focused on opportunities to decouple compute from energy intensity at every layer of the stack, from the power supply down to green cement and green steel used in construction, storage optimization software, and database design. The firm is also focused on grid resilience and flexibility, as the mix of power sources grows more complex. Here, Preston noted, Generation has invested in Volue , a European company helping utilities pull more renewables into the grid, and Gridware , which places sensors on utility poles to monitor and help protect the grid from wildfire risk. Gore tied the AI moment to a broader argument made in Generation's 10th annual Sustainability Trends Report : This year marks the second time in four years the world has been "brutally reminded" that fossil fuels are a volatile source of energy, first with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and now with the disruption to the Strait of Hormuz. But unlike past years, when Gore's exasperation with the pace of the clean energy transition was obvious, he doesn't see these events as a setback but instead as reasons for countries to embrace it at long last. Indeed, Gore noted that globally, clean energy investment now runs at roughly twice the level of fossil fuel investment. Of all new electricity generation capacity added worldwide last year, 86% came from renewables, and in the U.S. specifically, that figure was even higher, at 91%, "in spite of Donald Trump's best efforts to slow it down," he said. China, in particular, received high marks from Gore, who, among other things, applauded Beijing for wanting to be measured on emissions reductions rather than improvements in carbon intensity. Asked what's changed more than he expected a decade into publishing this report, Gore immediately pointed to solar power. "For me personally, the scope and scale of the solar revolution is the breakout star of the sustainability transition," he said. After observing that it's at, or near, the cost floor for new electricity generation right now — roughly tied with wind and meaningfully cheaper than gas, coal, or nuclear — he closed with a line from a friend in Tennessee that had stuck with him: "If God had intended us to have a limitless supply of cheap, clean energy, he — or she — would have put a fusion reactor in the sky," Gore said with a chuckle. "The joke makes itself." Topics AI , AI data center , Al Gore , Climate , Exclusive When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Connie Loizos Editor in Chief & General Manager Loizos has been reporting on Silicon Valley since the late ’90s, when she joined the original Red Herring magazine. Previously the Silicon Valley Editor of TechCrunch, she was named Editor in Chief and General Manager of TechCrunch in September 2023. She’s also the founder of StrictlyVC, a daily e-newsletter and lecture series acquired by Yahoo in August 2023 and now operated as a sub brand of TechCrunch. You can contact or verify outreach from Connie by emailing connie@strictlyvc.com or connie@techcrunch.com , or via encrypted message at ConnieLoizos.53 on Signal. View Bio October