Every month, there are new breakthroughs in AI technology that enables companies to do more with less..... But that didn’t result in the same AI systems using less electricity; instead, it resulted in the same amount of electricity being used to make even better AI systems. In economics, that phenomenon is known as “Jevons’ paradox”, after the economist who noted that the improvement of the steam engine by James Watt, which allowed for much less coal to be used, instead led to a huge increase in the amount of the fossil fuel burned in England. As the price of steam power plummeted following Watt’s invention, new uses were discovered that wouldn’t have been worthwhile when power was expensive.

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