Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence

Kate Crawford — a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research and a co-founder of the AI Now Institute — maps the material and political infrastructure of artificial intelligence: the mines where lithium and cobalt are extracted for batteries, the data centres that consume vast amounts of water and energy, the warehouses where workers train AI systems through repetitive low-paid labour, and the corporate and state actors who benefit from AI's deployment. Her argument is that AI is not a technology but a system — one that concentrates power, extracts resources, and operates largely without accountability.

The relevance to the information environment is substantial. The AI systems that Crawford analyses are the same systems that power content recommendation, advertising micro-targeting, and increasingly, the generation and amplification of synthetic media and disinformation. Understanding AI not as a neutral tool but as a power system — one whose design embeds specific interests and whose operation serves specific actors — is essential for practitioners who need to advise clients on AI-related information risks. Crawford's critical perspective provides a necessary counterweight to more techno-optimistic accounts of AI's role in both producing and countering disinformation.