Introduction
Welcome back to Controversies—where silicon dreams meet the planet’s hard limits. Today we’re suiting up for a fight on an unfamiliar front: the biosphere itself. Our rallying cry? A brand-new Comment in Nature Sustainability that raises an urgency-drenched challenge: Can we harness AI’s superhuman horsepower without shattering Earth’s fragile operating system—and what happens if we fail?
In this edition, we’ll grapple with:
The Jevons Catapult – How efficiency gains can backfire, hurling resource use into the stratosphere.
Direct vs. Systemic Footprints – Why terawatt-hungry training runs may be the smaller threat compared to AI-driven economic acceleration.
Earth Alignment 101 – The authors’ bold proposal to anchor every line of code to the health of the only home we’ve got.
Three Pillars, One Planet – Living within boundaries, sharing AI’s spoils fairly, and rebuilding the social trust that mass disinformation erodes.
Power Players & Playbooks – From regulators to investors, the concrete levers that can pivot AI from planetary peril to planetary partner.