Anonymous Sources Detail Sam Altman’s Alleged Untrustworthiness in New Report

Anonymous Sources Detail Sam Altman’s Alleged Untrustworthiness in New Report

Anonymous Sources Detail Sam Altman’s Alleged Untrustworthiness in New Report
"I think there's a small but real chance he's eventually remembered as a Bernie Madoff- or Sam Bankman-Fried-level scammer."
BY ECE YILDIRIMPUBLISHED APRIL 6, 2026, 7:00 PM ET

READING TIME 5 MINUTES

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the Blackrock Infrastructure Summit held In Washington, Dc © Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images
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On Monday, The New Yorker published a lengthy investigation detailing the days leading up to and following Sam Altman’s brief ousting as OpenAI’s CEO.

Back in late 2023, OpenAI’s board of directors shocked Silicon Valley by firing Sam Altman seemingly out of the blue. Following a five-day media blitz by Altman and his supporters and a public letter demanding his return, Altman came back to the company as CEO. The board members who had orchestrated the coup were ousted and replaced with Altman allies such as economist Larry Summers and former Facebook CTO Bret Taylor, who is currently the chairman of the board at OpenAI.


When Altman was reinstated as CEO, OpenAI employees began referring to the turbulent few days as “the Blip,” in reference to the blip in the Marvel Cinematic Universe when the supervillain Thanos made half the world’s population disappear for five years.

According to the New Yorker report, citing interviews with dozens of people in the know, including Altman himself, the OpenAI executive was ousted because his own board members did not find him trustworthy enough to “have his finger on the button” of artificial superintelligence, a theoretical and highly contested super-powered future AI system that could outperform human intelligence on all fronts. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with artificial general intelligence (AGI), although it describes a step even beyond that.

Following secret memos sent to fellow board members by OpenAI’s then-chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, the board reportedly compiled a roughly seventy-page document evidencing Altman’s “consistent pattern” of lying, including about internal safety protocols.

The report says that Altman’s alleged history of lying extends to a time before OpenAI as well. According to the investigation, senior employees at Altman’s previous startup, a now-defunct location-sharing service called Loopt, asked the board to fire him as CEO due to concerns with his lack of transparency.

The accusations followed him to startup accelerator Y Combinator, which Altman led for five years until he was removed due to mistrust, according to the sources cited in the article. Y Combinator leadership has said that he wasn’t fired but was only asked to choose between the startup accelerator and OpenAI. The late hacktivist and former Reddit co-owner Aaron Swartz, who was in Altman’s cohort when he first joined Y Combinator as an entrepreneur with Loopt, allegedly described him as “a sociopath” who could “never be trusted.”

At OpenAI, Altman was accused of lying to executives and even to government officials. The report details an instance in which Altman told U.S. intelligence officials that China had launched a major AGI development project and asked for government funding to launch a counteroffensive, but then failed to show any evidence when asked.

The report also details instances of Altman allegedly gaslighting Anthropic co-founder and then-OpenAI employee Dario Amodei regarding a provision in the billion-dollar Microsoft deal OpenAI signed in 2019 that would override the altruistic clauses Amodei had included in the charter for the company. The clause in question was about AGI, and posited that if another company found a way to build it safely, then OpenAI would “stop competing with and start assisting this project,” as a non-profit with a safety-first objective. OpenAI has since changed its structure to become a for-profit corporation.

Even some Microsoft senior executives, with whom OpenAI has had a long partnership since the 2019 deal, described Altman as someone who “misrepresented, distorted, renegotiated, reneged on agreements.” One senior executive even apparently said this of Altman: “I think there’s a small but real chance he’s eventually remembered as a Bernie Madoff- or Sam Bankman-Fried-level scammer.”

Those are alarming words to read about any executive in charge of a company as large and consequential as OpenAI, but they have even more weight considering that OpenAI is the leading company creating a technology that many, including its early employees, have defined as a possible existential threat to humanity.

Under Sam Altman’s leadership, OpenAI’s technology has infiltrated pretty much all aspects of modern life. OpenAI’s AI is used by tens of millions of people around the world for health advice, and by numerous others for everything from automating work across industries to finishing homework for students and even offering murky companionship to some lonely people who seek it. ChatGPT is used throughout the federal government as well, and Altman has also recently sold the technology to the Pentagon.

This is all fueled by Altman’s salesmanship. He has sold the potential and purported realities of ChatGPT to so many people, leading to an unprecedented and potentially fragile dealmaking spree that has garnered so much investment that some experts say it is propping up the entire American economy right now.

The New Yorker report also claims that Altman assured the board that GPT-4 had been approved by a safety panel, which turned out to be a misrepresentation when a board member requested documentation of the approvals. Sutskever claimed in the memos that Altman also downplayed the need for safety approvals in conversation with former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, citing the company’s general counsel. But when Murati asked the general counsel about it, he said he was “confused where sam got that impression.”

The accusations around ChatGPT’s safety features are particularly damning, considering the fallout of GPT-4o, the iteration of ChatGPT that followed GPT-4. The model’s knack for sycophancy reportedly caused instances of “AI psychosis” in vulnerable users, with some cases ending in fatalities.

Some of Altman’s inconsistencies have been well-documented publicly, too. Time and again, the OpenAI chief has published contradictory statements on things like the merits of putting ads in AI chatbots, the need for AI regulation, or whether ChatGPT’s voice feature unveiled in 2024 was inspired by Scarlett Johansson’s performance in the movie “Her.” Altman was also scrutinized recently over a whopping $100 billion Nvidia deal that just did not materialize as initially announced.

The report also details how the company’s culture vastly changed following Altman’s reinstatement as CEO. Before “the Blip,” the company had approached the concept of AGI cautiously, while after, AGI reportedly became a North Star for the company, with slogans like “feel the AGI” seen on merchandise around its offices. The alleged difference was seen in practice, too, as OpenAI disbanded some key teams focusing on chatbot safety, like the existential AI risk team and the superalignment team, which was co-led by Sutskever.

The report comes as Altman’s leadership is put under a microscope as the company begins preparing for a potential IPO.

According to a recent The Information report, Altman seems to be at odds with executives once again, this time regarding OpenAI’s readiness for an IPO. Altman reportedly wants to go public as soon as the fourth quarter of this year and is committing to spend $600 billion in the next five years despite expectations that OpenAI will burn more than $200 billion before it starts making money. Meanwhile, the report claims that OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar does not believe the company is ready to go public this year at all, due to the risky spending commitments. Unlike Altman, Friar reportedly does not yet believe that OpenAI’s revenue growth can support its financial commitments, nor is she certain that the company will even need to pour that much money into AI servers.

Social Media Users are Less Active on Platforms Due to Rise of Short-Form Video | PetaPixel

Social Media Users are Less Active on Platforms Due to Rise of Short-Form Video | PetaPixel

Social Media Users are Less Active on Platforms Due to Rise of Short-Form Video

 APR 03, 2026

 PESALA BANDARA

A new study revealed that U.K. social media users are less active due to the dominance of short-form video on the most popular platforms — in a trend that’s likely reflected across the Western world.

In a report published Thursday, Ofcom examined trends in adults’ social media habits and online behavior over the past year. The regulator’s latest survey, conducted between September 29 and November 28, gathered responses from 7,533 U.K. adults aged 16 and over on how they use social media, access news, and think about digital privacy, among other topics.

The findings show a notable drop in active participation. Just under half of adult social media users (49%) say they now post, share, or comment on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and X, down from 61% the previous year. The proportion of users exploring new websites has also declined, from 70% to 56%.

Ofcom says the decrease in active use appears to be linked to the growing influence of video-focused features and platforms, as well as concerns about the long-term impact of past posts on personal accounts.

Joseph Oxlade, senior research manager at Ofcom, tells The Guardian that the rise of video apps such as TikTok and Instagram’s Reels feature meant some users were posting and commenting less than they previously did on platforms like Facebook.

Despite this shift, overall social media use remains widespread. The report found that 89% of adult internet users in the UK use at least one social media platform, rising to 97% among those aged 16 to 34. The study also found that users are also becoming more selective about what they share. Concerns about data privacy, including the misuse of personal information such as photos, have contributed to changes in behavior, Oxlade tells The Guardian.

Some users have stopped posting altogether, while others are opting for less permanent forms of content. The report found that more people are choosing features like Instagram Stories instead of permanent grid posts, pointing to an increase in more “passive” forms of social media use.

Worries about future consequences are also growing. Nearly half of adults (49%) said they are concerned their posts could cause problems later in life, up from 43% a year earlier.

Social media expert Matt Navarra tells the BBC that the trend may reflect a shift toward what he described as “digital self-preservation,” with users moving to smaller, more private spaces such as group chats and direct messages.

“People haven’t fallen out of love with social media, I think they’ve just become a lot more intentional about how they show up on it,” Navarra says.

Proton community member

 

Proton community member, We launched Proton 12 years ago to address the critical need for private communications in the surveillance age. But as online threats have evolved, so has Proton. Just in the last month, we’ve launched Proton Meet (encrypted video calling) and a comprehensive new Workspace plan for the hundreds of thousands of businesses adopting Proton to protect their data. Perhaps most importantly, we’ve also created a new way for mindful parents to protect the next generation with the launch of Born Private. Children are being pushed online earlier than ever. School platforms, games, apps, and messaging tools capture them before they’re even old enough to understand privacy or what it means to leave a lifelong digital trail. A Proton survey found that 43% of children already have a personal email address. Among them, 78% use Gmail, giving Google a wiretap on their childhood. Here’s how Born Private works: You can pick a Proton email address for your child and keep it reserved for up to 15 years. When your child is ready, they can kickstart their digital life with a clean slate, protected by strong encryption and free from advertisers and AI data collection.

Reserve your child’s private email

Maine is poised to freeze large data-center construction

  

Maine Is About to Become the First State to Ban New Data Centers

Legislation that could be enacted this spring would pause construction of large new data centers until November 2027

By 

Will Parker

April 2, 2026 5:30 am ET

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At the site of an old paper mill in Jay, Maine—seen here in 2020—construction of a data center is expected to get under way in July. ROBERT F. BUKATY/AP

Maine is poised to freeze large data-center construction, which would make it the first state to enact such a measure as communities across the U.S. grapple with fallout from the boom in artificial intelligence.

The Maine bill calls for a ban on major new data-center construction until November 2027, so the state can assess the impact of such development on the environment and electricity grid.

The freeze would apply to data-center projects of at least 20 megawatts, which is enough energy to power more than 15,000 homes.

The bill passed a floor vote in the Democratic-controlled Maine House of Representatives last month, collecting a handful of Republican votes. It is expected to pass in the Senate, which is also majority Democratic. Gov. Janet Mills said she supports a freeze.

Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills said she supports a moratorium if it includes an exception for the project already planned in Jay. ROBERT F. BUKATY/AP

Maine has some of the country’s highest residential electricity prices, and elected officials are concerned that a surge in data-center power demand might further inflate costs. The AI build-out is driving up electricity costs for consumers in some parts of the country, and at the same time generating large tax revenues for local governments that continue to court developers.

The bill’s momentum will be watched closely by lawmakers in at least 10 other states that are advancing similar policies over concerns about straining local power sources and the cost. The effects of the artificial-intelligence race on the economy, energy costs and the environment is emerging as a major issue ahead of this year’s midterm elections. In Maine, a U.S. senate seat is up for grabs in November.

“I think Maine is the canary in the coal mine,” said Anirban Basu, chief economist for the Associated Builders and Contractors, a construction trade group that counts members who work on data centers. “Maine will be the first of many states to have such moratoria.”

Legislators have introduced measures to temporarily ban or restrict data centers in New York, South Carolina, Oklahoma and other states. In Ohio, one of the top states for data-center development, a group of rural activists is collecting signatures to put a statewide ban of large data centers on a November ballot.

Many other municipalities and counties, especially small ones in Michigan and Indiana, already have imposed their own temporary pauses. Denver and Detroit are among major cities considering such bans.

Data-center developers are growing increasingly wary of community and political opposition as they hunt for powered land across the country. Proposed local laws restricting data centers are “a red flag,” said Tracey Hyatt Bosman, a site selection consultant at BLS & Co. who works with data-center developers. “They do limit where we are looking,” she said.

Tony McDonald, who is developing a data center in the western Maine town of Jay, said he is scheduled to begin construction in July. “All of a sudden we’ve been caught in this dragnet,” he said.

Maine hasn’t been a magnet for Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft or other companies building hyperscale facilities for artificial intelligence. Recent data-center proposals in the Maine towns of Wiscasset and Lewiston were paused or failed at the local level, following resident opposition.

Some data-center developments in Maine have targeted defunct industrial sites, such as closed mills. One company recently proposed to build a $415 million underwater data center off Maine’s coast.

While it is possible the Maine moratorium bill could stumble in the amendment process, that a version of it eventually becomes law is a foregone conclusion among some state political operatives.

“That’s the political reality,” said Tony Buxton, a climate and energy attorney at Preti Flaherty, a legal and lobbying firm in Maine. “There is a very strong voter fear of data centers and AI.” 

Buxton’s firm has placed ads on social media advocating exemptions in the bill that would allow two already planned data-center projects to move forward in Jay and in Sanford, which is in southern Maine. These exemptions are being considered in the House.

Gov. Mills, a Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate in a highly publicized primary race against Iraq war veteran Graham Platner, said she supports the data moratorium if it includes an exception for the project already planned in Jay.

“The project is expected to bring much-needed jobs, economic activity and tax revenue to the region,” a spokesman for Mills said in a statement.

In the U.S. Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) last month unveiled legislative proposals to temporarily pause data-center construction nationwide.

 

Tesla can’t get out of its slump

Nurphoto/Getty Images

Teslas are selling like lukewarm cakes. The carmaker said yesterday that it shipped 6% more EVs last quarter than a year ago, which is considered a letdown, because Q1 2025 was when it partially paused production and faced backlash for Elon Musk’s politics. Wall Street was hoping for more. Last quarter was Tesla’s second-worst quarter since 2022: The 358k cars it delivered significantly undershot analysts’ projections, as well as the 408k vehicles it produced, leaving thousands of cars looking for homes. Its budget 3 and Y models accounted for 95% of deliveries, while the Cybertruck remained an offbeat purchase. Analysts blamed the disappointing sales on Tesla’s aging lineup, rising competition, and a broader industry downturn following the Trump administration’s nixing of a $7,500 EV tax credit last year. No longer a consumer car company? Though EVs are still its bread and butter, Tesla ties its future to launching the Optimus humanoid robot this year and mass-producing its autonomous taxi EV, CyberCab. But investors may feel differently. They responded to yesterday’s performance update just like your parents reacted to your assurances that a C- in math wouldn’t hinder your rap career. Tesla’s stock fell by nearly 6% yesterday, and is down by almost 20% since the year began. In a silver lining…soaring gas prices amid the war in Iran might be spurring some Americans to go electric. US sales of Hyundai’s EV Ioniq 5 rose by 13% last month, while Cadillac EV sales were up by 20% in Q1.

Microsoft offers buyouts to 7% of US staff

 Microsoft offers buyouts to 7% of US staff. In the latest sign that tech jobs are not as stable as they once were, Microsoft will offer buyouts to US workers at the senior-director level and below whose years of employment and age add up to 70+. The voluntary retirement program is the first in the history of the 51-year-old company, which, like its fellow tech giants, is committing tons of cash to developing AI. Microsoft is also updating how it awards bonuses and stock options. Meanwhile, Meta confirmed yesterday that it will lay off about 10% of its workforce, cutting about 8,000 jobs.

New AI Voice Agent for VoIP.ms

 

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What you can do ​ ✓ Answer calls 24/7 — Stay available after hours, during peak periods, or when your team is tied up. ​ ✓ Route callers intelligently — Direct people to the right extension, queue, or destination based on intent. ​ ✓ Handle FAQs automatically — Reduce repetitive call handling for common questions and routine requests. ​ ✓ Keep your lines responsive — Improve responsiveness without adding staff or extra process overhead.

This beta is best suited for VoIP.ms business customers, MSPs, resellers, and teams running real inbound call flows.

Bluesky Users Respond With Overwhelming Disgust to Platform’s New AI

Bluesky Users Respond With Overwhelming Disgust to Platform’s New AI

Futurism · 3 days ago
by Victor Tangermann · Artificial Intelligence


In its early days, Twitter alternative Bluesky tried to paint itself as a safe haven from the onslaught of AI, promising in November 2024 that it had “no intention” of scraping user-generated posts to train AI models.

It was a shot across the bow, clearly aimed at its rival X-formerly-Twitter, which had recently changed its terms of service to allow just that. And since then, backlash to AI slop and relentless AI integrations has grown to new heights.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Bluesky’s abrupt foray into AI isn’t sitting well with its notoriously anti-AI user base.

Specifically, the company’s chief innovation officer Jay Graber, who stepped down as CEO earlier this month to focus on “exploring new ideas” at the company, announced a new AI app called Attie at a conference over the weekend.

Attie, which interim CEO Toni Schneider referred to as a “new product” that’s “not part of the Bluesky app” in an interview with TechCrunch, allows users to essentially vibe code their own custom feed using natural language prompts — or even build their own Bluesky app alternative on top of the service’s Atmosphere protocol, an ecosystem of interoperable social applications.

“You control it, you shape it, without having to write code or know how to set up these feeds,” Schneider enthused.

The CEO seemed well aware of the headwinds against launching consumer-facing AI products in 2026.

“It is an AI product, but it’s an AI product that’s very people-focused,” he told TechCrunch. “We think AI is a very powerful technology, but we want to make sure that we use it to build things that really benefit people.”

“We think AI should serve people, not platforms,” Graber told audiences at this weekend’s announcement. “An open protocol puts this power directly in users’ hands.”

However, given the immediate reactions to the new app, it may struggle to catch on.

“Thanks, we’re good, no need to explain it further,” one user replied to Graber after she announced it in a Saturday post.

“Cool!” another added. “How do we block it?”

“Me, looking for who the f*** wants this,” reads the caption of a meme a different user posted, showing a woman standing on a ladder and gazing into the distance.

Graber appeared to be aware of the inflood of hatred for the idea. When a user told her that “we don’t want it,” she replied with a curt: “then don’t use it — it’s a separate app.”

Graber also reshared a post by a different user who claimed people “on the left” were being “shortsighted” by being willfully blind about AI, and that the argument “‘hope it goes away’ doesn’t have a great track record as a strategy for contesting control of new political domains and technologies.” The implication: Bluesky users are wrong about their resentment over AI and should instead embrace it.

Schneider told TechCrunch that the company is still considering how to monetize its latest feature, and that a fee for using Attie, which is currently in private beta, is on the table.

But considering the outrage the app’s announcement has wrought, it’s unclear at best if any serious numbers of users are jumping to use it — even if it’s free, which could turn Attie into an expensive distraction and a largely ineffective way to draw new users in.

In the Gulf, GPS jamming leaves delivery drivers navigating blind

In the Gulf, GPS jamming leaves delivery drivers navigating blind

The war has led to mass GPS-jamming, forcing drivers to rely on memory, landmarks, and phone calls.

iStock/Rest of World
By DIVSHA BHAT
2 APRIL 2026 • DUBAI, THE UAE
TRANSLATE





As war raged across the Persian Gulf in the first week of March, delivery driver Saeed Ahmed continued making deliveries in Dubai. Navigating down Al Asayel street, the 32-year-old driver for Lulu Hypermarket followed the blue navigation line on his phone as it guided him to a customer. Then, without warning, the route on his map shifted. The street he was on became invisible.

Ahmed pulled over and called the customer. The address was correct. The map was not.

As the conflict between the U.S., Israel, and Iran rages on for the second month, gig workers say these kinds of GPS-related disruptions have become routine. Military forces across the region are increasingly deploying electronic systems that interfere with Global Navigation Satellite System signals, including GPS, to defend against drones and missile attacks. These systems can jam signals entirely or spoof them by feeding false location data to receivers. The interference often spills into civilian life, disrupting the lives of millions of people who rely on tools like maps. For delivery drivers, the breakdown is both immediate and disorienting.


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The impact of GPS jamming extends beyond consumer-oriented mapping tools. Recent data by maritime intelligence firm Windward indicates that GPS jamming affected more than 1,650 ships in the Middle East on March 7, up 55% from the previous week. Vessels were incorrectly placed on land and at sea in Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Nearly 1,100 ships were impacted within 24 hours following U.S. strikes on Iran on February 28.

“Any jamming and spoofing signals will affect any GNSS receiver within range,” Thomas Withington, an independent electronic warfare specialist, told Rest of World. “This includes smartphones and any device capable of receiving such signals.”

GPS blocking and jamming have become so common that drivers can no longer trust their maps, they told Rest of World. Ahmed said even routine trips have become unpredictable. “We found it very troublesome. Usually, we verify the building name because we know the roads. But in unfamiliar areas, we have to keep calling the customers. Deliveries get delayed, and customers get annoyed.”

Switching between navigation apps offers little relief. “I tried using other apps such as Waze and 2GIS, but it was the same,” he said. “In some areas like Dubai Marina and Downtown, it still doesn’t work properly.”

Veteran drivers rely on memory to navigate. Muhammad Asif, who has been driving in Dubai for more than 20 years, said that “sometimes the location shifts far away. A short trip suddenly looks much longer.” When that happens, he ignores the map and navigates manually. “The map shows 40 minutes, when I’m about to reach in five.”

Newer delivery drivers face the steepest learning curve. Vansh Gupta, who has been working for online shopping and delivery app Noon for just eight months, said he has had to adapt quickly. “I used to struggle a lot initially, but now I follow the full address and somehow reach based on that,” he said. “Most customers understand if deliveries are delayed.”

Muhammad Azam, who works for food delivery app Keeta, said disruptions have decreased since early March, but still persist. “It creates uncertainty on the road,” he said.

Rest of World reached out to Keeta and Noon for comment but did not receive a response.

“From a geospatial intelligence standpoint, this is clearly a persistent regional phenomenon,” Nidal H. Saliba, an independent geospatial intelligence consultant, told Rest of World. “It is patterned and clustered.”

“High-powered interference often spills into civilian areas,” he said. On the ground, that translates into two main problems: instability and inaccuracy. Devices may freeze or lose signal entirely, or they may continue functioning while reporting incorrect positions, said Saliba.

GPS jamming and spoofing are not confined to one region. The International Telecommunication Union, together with the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization, issued a joint statement expressing “grave concern” over the rising harmful interference. Such disruption is increasingly affecting satellite navigation systems used in aviation and maritime operations worldwide.

On logistics platforms, inaccurate location data can trigger a cascade of problems. Delivery drivers may appear in the wrong place, leading to incorrect order assignments. Pickup and delivery times become harder to predict. Automated systems that depend on precise positioning begin to misfire.

“Core logistics systems are highly dependent on accurate real-time location data,” Raman Pathak, CEO and co-founder of UAE-based logistics company Jeebly, told Rest of World. “During GPS interference incidents, we’ve seen significant operational impact.”

“Auto-assignment logic gets disrupted,” he said.

Operations teams often have to intervene manually, increasing coordination efforts and slowing down workflows. In some cases, companies shift away from automated processes altogether, relying instead on human oversight to manage deliveries.

The disruptions highlight how deeply modern logistics systems depend on GPS, and how vulnerable that dependence can be.

“GPS signals originate from satellites roughly 20,000 kilometers [12,400 miles] above Earth. By the time they [signals] reach the ground, they are extremely weak, making them relatively easy to interfere with,” Jim Stroup, head of growth at SandboxAQ’s navigation system, AQNav, told Rest of World.

“It doesn’t take much to override that signal,” he said. “A stronger ground-based signal can make a receiver believe it’s somewhere else entirely.”

In the meantime, workers on the ground are coping as best as they can. “Before, we followed the map,” said Ahmed. “Now, we follow the roads we remember.”

Data Centers Causing Huge Temperature Spikes for Miles Around Them

Data Centers Causing Huge Temperature Spikes for Miles Around Them, Study Suggests
Not very cool.

By Frank Landymore

Published Apr 1, 2026 9:03 AM EDT
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The data centers at the heart of the AI boom are producing so much heat that they’re spiking land temperatures for miles around them by up to 16 degrees Fahrenheit, new research suggests. The effect is so pronounced that the researchers say they’re creating entire “heat islands.”

The findings, detailed in a study that’s yet-to-be-peer-reviewed, add to an already grim picture of the environmental impact of these sprawling facilities, the largest of which consume enough energy to power entire cities. Their commensurate greenhouse gas emissions, however, apparently aren’t the only way data centers are heating up the world around them.

The researchers focused on roughly 8,400 so-called “hyperscalers,” the term used to describe data centers of incredible size that offer cloud computing and AI services. Their construction has surged in the past decade, and the AI boom has pushed their demand and scope to new heights; Meta’s new “Hyperion” data center, for example, cost $27 billion to build and has an expected computing capacity of five gigawatts, an appetite that takes ten gas-powered plants to sate.

Since temperature can be affected by other environmental factors, the researchers examined data centers in more remote locations. When they mapped their locations against regional temperature data over the past 20 years collected by satellites, a clear pattern emerged. Land surface temperatures, meaning the heat of the ground itself rather than the air or climate, increased by an average of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit after a data center went online in an area — and in the most extreme cases, the temperature surged by an extraordinary 16 degrees.

The effects were local, but far reaching. The researchers found that the temperature increases were felt up to 6.2 miles away — though they dropped off with distance — in all affecting more than 340 million people. CNN‘s coverage notes that the trend held globally: Mexico’s burgeoning data center hub in Bajio saw an uptick of around 3.6 degrees over the past 20 years, as did Aragon, Spain, itself a hot new hub for hyperscalers.

Study lead author Andrea Marinoni, an associate professor with the Earth Observation group at the University of Cambridge, told CNN that data centers “could have dramatic impacts on society” in terms of the environment, people’s welfare and the economy.

Other experts were intrigued but cautious about the findings. Ralph Hintemann, a senior researcher at the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability, called the figures “interesting” but “very high,” underscoring the need to verify the results.

The mechanism behind the heating also isn’t immediately clear. “It would be worth doing follow-up research to understand to what extent it’s the heat generated from computation versus the heat generated from the building itself,” Chris Preist at the University of Bristol in the UK told New Scientist, suggesting that sunlight hitting the buildings could be producing the heating effect. This is part of a well-documented phenomenon researchers called the “urban heat island.”

Among other commentators, however, the temperature of response was much more heated. Andy Masley, a writer who frequently “debunks” claims of AI’s environmental impact, called the paper the “single worst writing and research on AI and the environment that I have read” in a lengthy takedown, claiming that the heating effect from sunlight hitting the buildings was powerful enough to look like it was emanating from the ground in satellite data. (Part of his analysis relied on feeding the paper to Claude, however, so make of that what you will.)

Whatever’s going on, it’d be remiss to lose sight of the facilities’ broader environmental impact.

“As far as climate change is concerned, the emissions generated by power generation for data centres remain the more alarming aspect,” Hintemann told CNN.

To the moon, we return... with a historic toilet milestone

 

Image: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

 

To the moon, we return... with a historic toilet milestone, too

 

NASA's Artemis II mission just launched, and it will take astronauts on a journey around the moon for a 10-day mission. It's a risky and historic return since the Apollo era, but another huge milestone is the toilet. Instead of bags and funnels, astronauts now have access to bathrooms with doors that work for both genders without any challenges, and for the first time, the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) can hold urine and poop simultaneously.

Is grad school worth it?

 

Is grad school worth it? Survey says...it depends!

Joseph Prezioso/Getty Images

Here’s something to send to your friends who keep saying they are thinking about grad school after two cocktails. While graduate degrees in medicine, law, and pharmacy have high returns on investment, secondary degrees in fields including social work and psychology can actually yield negative returns, according to a new study released this week by the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center at American University. The researchers examined income before and after grad school for 800,000 students who attended public universities in Texas between 1992 and 2019. They factored in the cost of programs and how much pay they missed out on by being in school: Adjusted returns for individuals with a pharmacy doctorate earned 68% more, while those with a graduate degree in clinical psychology had a −5% return on investment. Doctors and lawyers saw a significant jump in adjusted returns, with 173% and 41%, respectively. MBA earners earned a 13% adjusted return on average. Big picture: Lists that show only post-degree earnings can be deceiving, as the cost of attending graduate school has ballooned in recent decades. The researchers acknowledged that some people choose to pursue grad school for reasons other than pay bumps, like getting a special certification, building out their networks, or longing to use the word pedagogy more.