Type 0.73: AI, Energy Consumption, and the Kardashev Scale

The author examines the rapid rise in electricity and hardware consumption driven by artificial intelligence data centers, arguing that efficiency gains in computing often lead to increased overall energy use rather than conservation. While computing power grows exponentially, the physical infrastructure of the power grid and chip manufacturing faces severe bottlenecks. Ultimately, the essay suggests that traditional measures of a civilization's energy consumption, such as the Kardashev scale, fail to capture the qualitative output of technological progress. Open article →