{"id":105211,"date":"2026-01-28T11:43:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T11:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/28\/the-real-cost-of-ai-slop\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T11:43:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T11:43:18","slug":"the-real-cost-of-ai-slop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/28\/the-real-cost-of-ai-slop\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Cost of AI Slop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"#episode-transcript\"><i>View the full episode transcript.<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<p>How much does your own AI use matter? With all the warnings about AI\u2019s adverse impact on the environment, it can be tough to understand what that means at the individual level. In this episode, Morgan breaks down the hidden costs of generative AI into something more relatable: microwave time. She\u2019s joined by MIT Technology Review reporters Casey Crownhart and James O\u2019Donnell, who spent months investigating how much energy and water AI systems actually use.<\/p>\n<p>Together, they unpack how AI models are trained and which ones are more resource-intensive, what effect the expansion of AI data centers has on local energy grids and just how much electricity it takes when we ask AI to generate text, images and videos.<\/p>\n<p><!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org\/plugins\/iframe\/ --><br \/><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3471727862\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Guests:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Further Reading\/Listening:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at <a href=\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/news\/2026\/01\/28\/the-real-cost-of-ai-slop\/mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/closealltabspod\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2060Instagram\u2060<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@closealltabs\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2060TikTok\u2060<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/news\/2026\/01\/28\/the-real-cost-of-ai-slop\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>View the full episode transcript. How much does your own AI use matter? With all the warnings about AI\u2019s adverse impact on the environment, it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":105212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-spotlight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}