Artificial intelligence and its hidden costs
Ecological limits and digital coloniality in Brazil
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17271/1980082721320256238Keywords:
Artificial intelligence, Data centers, Environmental justiceAbstract
Objective – To critically analyze artificial intelligence from its material and ecological foundations, focusing on the expansion of data centers and their environmental, territorial, and political impacts in Brazil, highlighting the paradox between AI’s sustainability promises and the intensification of its energy and water metabolism.
Methodology – The study adopts a qualitative and critical-analytical approach, grounded in an interdisciplinary literature review that articulates contributions from political ecology, ecological economics, critical technology studies, and environmental law, complemented by the analysis of technical reports, institutional documents, and specialized journalistic sources.
Originality/relevance – The article contributes to debates on the ecological limits of artificial intelligence by revealing the digital coloniality associated with the territorialization of data centers in the Global South, addressing a theoretical gap by linking digital infrastructure, environmental justice, and technological dependency in the Brazilian context.
Results – The findings indicate that the expansion of AI infrastructure in Brazil intensifies pressures on energy, water, and territory, reproducing global power asymmetries and displacing socio-environmental costs onto peripheral territories, while economic benefits and decision-making power remain concentrated in transnational corporations.
Theoretical/methodological contributions – The article contributes by repositioning artificial intelligence as an ecological infrastructure and a political-territorial phenomenon, offering a critical perspective that moves beyond technosolutionist approaches and incorporates ecological limits as a central analytical criterion.
Social and environmental contributions – The research underscores the need to integrate environmental justice and digital justice within AI governance processes, emphasizing the importance of public policies that account for territorial impacts, social participation, and binding sustainability criteria in the regulation of data centers.
KEYWORDS: Artificial intelligence. Data centers. Environmental justice.
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