We talk with Guillaume Pitron about the hidden face of digital transformation, uncommon metals, dark cloud, information highways and who owns our data.
Guillaume Pitron – French journalist, filmmaker, author of books: „The uncommon metals war: the hidden face of the energy and digital transition” and „The Dark Cloud: The Hidden Costs of the Digital World”. Co-author of the dystopian fiction „Promethium” (2021), forecasting a completely „green” planet of 2043. He has made more than a twelve documentaries. He won any 30. French and abroad awards, including Le Monde daily’s 2017 Erik-Izraelewicz award for best economical investigation (on the collapse of the French forest industry). Expert for the European Commission and the French Parliament on uncommon metals. He has been invited to share his ideas in the French and global media (Le Figaro, BBC planet Service, Bloomberg TV, El País, La Repubblica) and at global forums and institutions (Davos, IMF, European Commission, Unesco).
Sonia Priwieziencew: What was your most crucial or shocking discovery while working on the book „The Dark Cloud: The Hidden Costs of the Digital World”?
Guillaume Pitron: I was very amazed to discover the existence of an infrastructure that is absolutely essential to our lives, that is everywhere, that we depend on all second or minute of our lives, but which is completely invisible to us. It is under our feet, under the surface of the sea. yet it will be in space, but so far distant that we won’t see it.
What impressed me the most was that we can’t see it. We can’t feel it, we can’t contact it. The paradox between the fact that it’s everywhere, that it has become indispensable – it is as the NGO Greenpeace says, the biggest thing always built by man – and the fact that we don’t have the slightest thought of its existence. We’ve never been inside a data center, never seen an underwater cable, never seen a communications satellite. I was amazed by this complete discrepancy.
There are also things that are very surprising, specified seeing mines, especially graphite mines in China. Here, too, there is simply a immense paradox – we have a contrast between this emerging very modern technology, the technologies of the future, and the mediocre conditions of resource exploitation to produce these technologies. This paradox is striking and can only be seen by going to China.
What besides amazed me, and this will be my last point, is that the data must be cold. Lapland is 1 of the areas of interest for digital companies that store their servers in places where it is naturally cold.
I learned that our Facebook and WhatsApp data are stored in northern Europe, among another places where the net seeks cold.
This infrastructure you are talking about…, what does it look like? Is it cables, hangars, data centers? Who owns it? Is it governments or large companies?
First of all, infrastructure means industry. erstwhile we talk about the Internet, we talk and think about services, but actually, to make services, you request industry. manufacture is construction, factories that make cables, factories that build ships that lay cables. Who owns it? It is owned by many players.
One of them, of course, is the public sector, which has traditionally been the first owner of these industries, due to the fact that public resources were needed to implement them, especially in the case of cables. And then, gradually, we are seeing the emergence of private players in this sector, in the form of large companies, especially net companies specified as GAFAM: Google, Amazon and Facebook. Companies that own the „cloud” or data center. These are the manufacture players who are able to build immense hangars to store data.
Some companies besides own cables now. In particular, Google and Facebook, and now Meta, have a strong presence in the cable sector due to the fact that they want to control the information highways. It’s a bit like a if car company, specified as Renault or Peugeot, would decide to buy the highways in the country where its cars are driven.
Increasingly, Google and Facebook not only want to own the data – the data we exchange on the net is their property, which they turn into advertising services – but they besides want to own the information highways, the cables along which the data travels.
It’s a way for them to control the method side of the process to make certain there’s no disruption in traffic.
My comments are reasonably general, as I would gotta go into the details of the various industries, but we are indeed seeing more and more private players stepping in to manage infrastructure that is almost a common property. Not a common property in the legal sense – but my point is that all the connections of our digital lives completely depend on this infrastructure. In another words, if the cables halt working tomorrow, we have no alternatives. That’s what is interesting – to see the power of these corporations in relation to the governments of individual countries, and to think about the consequences.
Exactly, this was 1 of my questions: what impact can this situation have on the geopolitical relations in the world?
These are complex issues, but they primarily relate to the sovereignty of states. How a country is connected to the global network, what is its territory, its infrastructure, puts the country in a position of greater or lesser independence.
If you don’t have data centers on your territory, it means that the data you produce is not with you and you don’t own your own data.
For governments to hold sovereignty, data should be stored as close to consumers as possible, so that the French, for example, can own their own data.
The same goes for Poles. If the data of the Polish social safety system, the Polish police or the Polish intelligence services are not on Polish territory, this delocalization, the uncertainty of their geographic location, raises the question of sovereignty. If the data goes to a U.S. company’s data center on the East coast of the United States, 1 can imagine the hazard of espionage, of being utilized by another country for geopolitical purposes.
Is this the case today? In another words, we are not certain if governments are the physical owners of this data, since most of it has been transferred?
This question comes up almost daily. In France, for example, we discovered that at 1 point the French government signed an agreement with Microsoft, which offered „cloud” services, Microsoft Azure, in its infrastructure to store French data, relating to social security. This raises questions.
The French social safety strategy stores information about the wellness of all citizen. Although the data is stored in France, it is managed by an American service provider. And that raises questions about sovereignty.
So erstwhile you said in 1 interview that data is the „black gold” of the future, was that what you meant, or something else?
I’m not the only 1 who said that, nor am I the 1 who came up with the term….
If we want to realize the environment in which we live today, we see how much value there is in knowing about people, about countries, about what they like… We live in an information society and economy. There is simply a gradual change in the creation of wealth, which we have already seen for respective decades, where in fact the worth of natural materials is decreasing. On 1 hand, a farmer present does not gain much. On the another hand, individual with very, very specialized cognition of the agricultural sector earns much more. Those who work with materials gain less, but those who work with cognition gain much more.
So we can make a parallel between materials and data, which in a sense becomes material itself. cognition is not a physical material, but it is strategical in nature. The questions for governments are: where to find this knowledge, who will capture it in the form of data, who will usage algorithms to transform it into information, and who will usage it to offer services and gain technological advantage?
Mastering data from the minute it is captured to the minute it is utilized is the strategical key for our society today.
Coming back to this material aspect, which you besides compose about in your book „War on uncommon Metals,” let’s talk about the fictional dematerialization of digital technology. We have the impression that it’s all very intangible, very virtual like the „cloud,” for example, while you show in your book that the other is true. All this requires immense investments, infrastructure, uncommon metals and mines. Is this thought of a dematerialized digital planet with no environmental impact something we are being intentionally told?
I don’t know if I’m an expert on this, but I see that in this thought of „dematerialization” is frequently at the center of the marketing of all net players, due to the fact that behind it is the thought of ease and fluidity. I don’t think they are talking about the environment. I don’t think they’re saying you’re dematerialized, so you’re not polluting the environment, and at least in the early days of the Internet, that was improbable to be the intention. I think the word was invented to make people want these services, which yet means little paperwork. It’s the aspect of getting free of paper, getting free of all the complexity of regular life associated with paper and entering a planet that is simpler to manage and more seamless.
We can take as an example the dematerialized to any degree administration I witnessed erstwhile I was in Estonia. This is an administration that is becoming more accessible all day. You don’t gotta stand in line at the office. You can just go online and submit a dematerialized application to get a service that shows up and that you can access quickly. I think this is more about simplification.
The ambiguity arose due to the fact that the word „dematerialization” created ambiguity around the concept of ecological impact. However, I don’t think this was intended from the beginning. Just as the word „cloud” was not intended from the beginning to make you think there are no data centers. It was just a marketing word meaning simplicity. You see, you always have access to your data due to the fact that the „cloud” is always close to you. However, this created another ambiguity, and I don’t think GAFAM recognized it from the beginning, which was precisely their „dematerialization.” And abruptly there was a question about their actual physical, material impact on the environment. Now the manufacture is besides beginning to grasp this message.
Let’s decision on to something very concrete in terms of material resources – smartphones, which are at the center of the digital world, let’s talk about the importance of smartphones for the environment. You said that there are about sixty metals in each smartphone. This must have a immense impact on CO2 emissions?
First of all, phones bring us face to face with another kind of contamination that we never talk about, which is not CO2 emissions. We frequently view our green conversion only in terms of CO2 emissions. This is more or little the only criterion, or at least the main argument we usage to see if what we are doing for the planet is good.
In fact, the phones themselves emit no or very small CO2, even at the construction and production stages. The CO2 emissions in this case are due to the fact that metals are required for production. It is their extraction that emits CO2.
The real problem with phones is the natural material from which they are made and the difficulty in obtaining it.
The key material utilized in phones is rather lightweight. Paradoxically, obtaining it is very complicated.
A lot of work should be put into mining to get these metals, which are highly efficient and let the telephone to be miniaturized. Although the telephone is very light, we don’t realize that the natural material needed to produce it, the material and rocks moved before refining, the water needed to refine them all have a cost.
So we request to shift our attention from simply looking at the CO2 that phones can emit to the natural material needed to make these tiny objects, and accept the counterintuitive reflection that in fact the lighter and more miniaturized the telephone we want to make, the more material is paradoxically needed. To miniaturize a phone, you request metals with different physical and chemical properties that happen very diluted in the Earth’s crust, and to extract and process them, you consume even more resources.
This is the real contamination generated by smartphones, material pollution, with all the effects associated with mining, including, of course, CO2 emissions. Mine operations emit CO2, but they besides origin dirt pollution, water pollution, failure of biodiversity. Before a mine is open, there is simply a failure of biodiversity. We do not see this pollution. By analyzing the environmental impact of smartphones in this way, we open ourselves up to a different way of looking at our environmental impact, not just in terms of CO2, but with another criteria. This is simply a much fuller and richer imagination of the impact of human activity on the Earth.
And what about the transition to green energy – solar panels, electrical cars, wind… is it the same problem as with smartphones, the problem of the resources needed, the metals to produce them?Here, too, we are not aware of the real consequences?
This is precisely what I mean. In another words, we have technologies that are said to be clean due to the fact that they actually emit very small CO2 during the exploitation phase. But erstwhile again, we look only at CO2 and say that these technologies are clean. Meanwhile, we don’t take into account the CO2 that may have been generated during the production phase: extracting metals from the ground, refining them utilizing electricity produced from coal.
In fact, we have the illusion that „it’s green,” but that’s due to the fact that we’re only looking at the using, not the production phase.
The goal of these technologies is to produce the same amount of electricity with a solar panel or a wind turbine as with coal. In fact, much little oil is needed, but much more metals. In the same way that it takes much little oil to power an electrical car than a gasoline car, but it takes much more metals. So we request to look at another types of contamination related to another resources. It’s not just CO2 pollution.
You are right to draw this parallel, due to the fact that digital technologies and green technologies are based on the extraction of the same metals. They are the same. A cell telephone battery is like a tiny battery for an electrical car. It’s lighter, but it requires the same metals: lithium, graphite, cobalt, copper… So the problem is similar, and above all, another forms of contamination that we besides frequently ignore should be looked at the same way.
That’s clear, but let’s effort to sum up the situation: then can this digital world, the transition to digital technology, be in any way reconciled with the thought of green environmental transformation? Digital technology is said to already consume 10% of electricity and produce 4% of CO2 emissions. So where does this lead?
Well, I think it is possibly reconcilable, and that we should not deny or underestimate the affirmative impact that digital technology can have on the environment. We request to keep that in mind.
If I talk to you now via WhatsApp, I don’t gotta fly all the way to Poland, in which case I would emit more CO2 than talking on the phone. Another affirmative example is subscribing to the services of a company like „To Good to Go”, a platform that connects the seller of tomatoes that are about to be thrown in the trash and the buyer of tomatoes who would like to buy them at a lower price. The platform puts supply and request in contact with each another and helps avoid waste, which in turn means little deforestation to grow crops, little pesticides, little fertilizer and little transportation of crops. Absolutely all of this represents a immense gain. I give examples that show that we should not underestimate specified affirmative effects.
However, I’m besides looking at the CO2 impact of a tool like ChatGPT4. Figures are starting to come out about what ChatGPT utilizing or training means. Already the usage of ChatGPT3 is having an highly advanced impact, especially in terms of CO2 emissions, and we believe that the impact of ChatGPT4 would be at least 10 times that of ChatGPT3.
So if you’re asking me whether today’s digital technology is entirely for the benefit of the planet or the opposite, I don’t have a definitive answer; however, I have a strong concern, so my intuition tells me, that today’s digital technology is accelerating global warming alternatively than helping to combat it. I’m not saying this with absolute certainty, I’m just saying that I powerfully fear that the balance is tilting in a negative direction, especially in light of fresh services: 5G, net of Things, ChatGPT, generative artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies and so on.
One of my questions is specifically about artificial intelligence. This is possibly a bit more of a philosophical question… How do you see the future of artificial intelligence, the fears, the hopes, the thought that artificial intelligence will be able to save us?
First of all, I would be careful about making any expert statements about artificial intelligence. I’m not a computer scientist, I’m not a physicist. So let me yet link this question to the environmental issue.
In my book „Dark Cloud „I devote an full chapter to artificial intelligence in the service of the environment, due to the fact that this concept truly has very far-reaching implications. I discovered during my investigation for the book that there is an thought to make an artificial intelligence that could make public policy decisions for us. We call it „green artificial intelligence” or „green general artificial intelligence.” It’s kind of science-fiction, wishful thinking.
The head of Silicon Valley and any Silicon Valley players are selling the thought that the fight against climate change, against global warming, is besides complex, that it has created besides many criteria for action, that we humans, with our tiny brains, are not smart adequate to deal with specified a complex phenomenon.
They argue that we request to accelerate digital technology so that we can make more and more data. Data that can be utilized to run deep learning artificial intelligence that would become so intelligent that it would yet be able to make environmental policy decisions for us.
It’s a fiction, but let’s look a fewer years ahead, erstwhile OPEN AI releases the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fifteenth, nineteenth versions of ChatGPT. If I then ask ChatGPT19 how to save the planet from global warming, we may want to trust ChatGPT. We’ll tell ourselves that this artificial intelligence is so deep, so powerful, that it finds answers that we can’t find on our own
And if ChatGPT tells us, you gotta do this, this and that, well, possibly we will gradually believe in it.
The thought of Silicon Valley, any Silicon Valley players, will be to draw this reasoning to its logical conclusion, saying that we must give machines and algorithms the authority to find solutions for us. This is all in the service of the planet, of course, but yet besides in the service of the expansion of the digital universe.
Here we see the intersection or point of contact between 2 very different worlds. On the 1 hand we have the planet of artificial intelligence – and artificial intelligence is not afraid with environmental protection, in this planet we don’t care about that at all; artificial intelligence is primarily a substance of geopolitics, balance of power, it’s a substance of money. On the another hand, we have the planet of caring about the planet, the environment. At this intersection is the argument that we shouldn’t halt artificial intelligence to reduce CO2 emissions, but that we request to accelerate artificial intelligence that emits CO2 itself, expecting it to be more profitable in the end. While risking that humans will yet remove from themselves any work for decision making. I find this highly interesting and, of course, possibly dangerous.
Thank you. All of this is fascinating, and your answers are very balanced. You do not take sides easily.
I hope that is my strength. I effort to present things in a somewhat nuanced way, and I know that readers can appreciate that, too.
In any case, it’s very interesting. The next question is possibly a bit outside your area of research, but looking at another aspect of environmental policy, delight say whether democracy, Western values, make it easier or harder to deal with civilization problems specified as environmental transformation? Is it easier to implement specified changes in democratic countries, or, for example, in an authoritarian government like China? How do you see it?
We actually have 2 opposing visions of the planet here, which have frequently been discussed, including in a French report.
On 1 hand, we have the view that, the needed energy transition is so radical, that the only way to make it possible in the short time frame imposed on us is to leave people no choice as to how and what agenda to pursue. As we have seen, this is the line of reasoning that has been adopted by the Russian government, for example. I don’t know how the Chinese will act, but it is clear present that if the Chinese always want to make a transition in a short period of time, it will be a way to effectively advance an autocratic government that gives direction and no choice.
On the another hand, we have another school of thought, which originated in Western countries, according to which environmental transformation can only work if it is democratically accepted. And this is the full doctrine behind the Citizens’ Climate Convention that took place in France. Citizens representing the French people were drawn and asked to consider perfect solutions. The doctrine behind this is to give the ecological transformation the seal of representativeness and democratic legitimacy. The presumption is that erstwhile this transformation is accepted by all, it will have a better chance of being implemented. It will have little opponents. These are 2 opposing views.
So we can see the question of our values in the approach to the energy transition. There are 2 opposing political visions, and there is simply a war on values, on the means we can usage to accomplish the goal.
China has a tough argument. After all, which country in the planet has been able to undertake metallic mining on specified a scale to produce panels? Which country produces green technologies? China.
It is China that produces the metals and it is China that refines most of them. In any case, they are the leader in this segment. They presently produce the most solar panels, the most electrical vehicles and the most batteries for electrical vehicles in the world. It is besides 1 of the countries with the largest installed wind power capacity in the world. So, if I had to give 1 example of a country that has made the energy transition in terms of size and comparative marketplace share faster than others, it is China.
In Western countries, we could not impose the creation of mines. And yet these mines are essential for the energy transition. So couldn’t China argue: let’s look at what we did, our vision. We didn’t gotta look at the polls and wonder if we would be re-elected in the next election. Let’s look at how this political stableness has allowed the mining sector to flourish, benefiting everyone around the world.
China now has a striking force in the production of green technology that benefits everyone, as we besides benefit from inexpensive Chinese panels. It is due to the fact that they are inexpensive and of low quality that we can put them everywhere, and thus facilitate the marketplace penetration of solar panels. It’s a model with autocratic tendencies, but 1 that has made it possible to accelerate a transformation that would be much little developed than it is now. I think this is simply a real argument for China to convince another countries to follow the same path
At the same time, as you rightly point out, mine-related contamination has been transferred to China.
In fact, and this is China’s hypocrisy. But at the end of the day, we all have our own hypocrisy, and there are discussions, which I described in my first book, between Chinese and American manufacturers, where 1 of them says to the other, „You’re disgusting.” The Chinese responds, “Yes, but it’s not my pollution, it’s yours.” In the same way, deforestation of the Amazon is partially my deforestation. The Brazilians may say, ‘Listen, you are attacking the deforestation of the Amazon, but we remind you that it is to plant soybeans, and soybeans feed cattle, and beef goes into the stomachs of Europeans.’
So, in a sense, we in the West are besides becoming aware of this reality, peculiarly through the regulations on imported deforestation[1], thanks to which we now make certain that coffee, cocoa and tungsten, to name just a fewer natural materials purchased by Europeans, are not produced as a consequence of deforestation in the Amazon. It’s a way of taking work for deforestation, which yet belongs to us. The same goes for what we call the externalization of metallic costs, due to the fact that at the end of the day the car is clean, I am clean, just due to the fact that individual else should be dirty on the another side of the planet.
This issue is starting to be better understood by Europeans with the emergence of alleged ESG standards – environmental, social and governance. Europe is increasingly demanding that finished products contain ‘ESG metals’, which could be mined on the another side of the planet, but under conditions that respect people and the environment.
Metal is inactive produced on the another side of the world, due to the fact that it would take time to re-establish its production in Europe, but even if it continues to be produced elsewhere, we are raising the production standards that must be met in order for metals to enter Europe.
This is simply a way to take responsibility. This creates a paradox: a greener planet will be more expensive. Are we willing to pay more to be greener? I’m not sure…
In this context, as average citizens, in Europe, in Poland, in France, for example, what should we ask of politicians, of companies and of ourselves?
First of all, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do the ecological transformation – due to the fact that people have frequently tried to abuse my words in this way. What should we ask? Above all, we must ask to undertake this transformation.
I like a planet dependent on metals than on coal and oil. The question is, how do you do it? There are, of course, geographical issues. How to take work for part of this production, where should it be located, should we transfer it? I think that might be a good solution.
I would so ask politicians to look at the territoriality of these mines. I would ask questions about the related technologies and, in particular, the acceleration of the recycling and circular loop economy related to metals. In fact, the most crucial issue present will be recycling. And the circular economy is simply a huge, essential update that needs to be implemented.
I would besides like to rise the issue of social justice. This transformation will cost any of us more than others, and the question arises how the effort will be shared.
Not everyone can afford to buy an electrical car today, it is very expensive. So 1 of the issues that will arise is the ability of our economies, with the right taxation policy, to balance the financial effort so that this transformation, which is costly, does not hit the mediate class. This is simply a real challenge to social justice.
Thank you. That’s a convincing approach. You present a global, comprehensive and nuanced view of these issues.
My last question has nothing to do with the rest, but we have many journalists in our organization, and you are a function model in this area, you have received many awards. The question is: what do request to become a good investigative journalist? What features are important? What advice can you give?
I don’t know if I am a function model, but I have discovered it’s a long-term job.
If you want to do investigative reporting, it is simply a complicated occupation due to the fact that it is expensive, can be poorly paid and takes time. First of all, I think you request the means to be a marathon runner, not a sprinter. If you are a sprinter, you will run out of steam and you may be disgusted with the competition. You should be a marathon runner and think long-term, even if it means taking extra work.
Nowadays, journalists frequently request to have extra paid work that allows them to sustain themselves in order to actually cover the distance, have the essential peace of head to conduct investigations in the long run – that are not necessarily well paid. You truly gotta ask yourself the question about the economical model, but one more time it is based on the doctrine of the marathon runner, not the sprinter.
Besides, in presenting my work, I discovered that there is an expanding anticipation of factual rigour and that’s something I’ve learned over time – to environment myself with people who aid and defend me erstwhile it comes to creating information, who make certain I haven’t said anything stupid. You gotta environment yourself with guardian angels if you want to conduct a credible investigation and not be criticized for it.
At the same time, I think you can never completely avoid criticism.
That’s true. We are not machines, and that is yet good. Finally, there is 1 more point that I think is crucial – we are actually expected to be researchers and storytellers. Being a storyteller is very important. Why are Netflix series so successful? due to the fact that you hold your breath after the last episode and you can’t wait for the next one. This is only possible thanks to a talent for storytelling. That’s what writers do.
I think in this business you should be a real writer. Know how to usage the techniques of storytelling, fresh techniques. Not to tell false stories, but to tell the truth, telling stories to our readers, listeners and viewers so they become as curious in proceeding about reality as they are in proceeding or watching fiction.
The storytelling method is very crucial for attracting attention, so I think you request to put a peculiar effort into it. That’s what I’m trying to do in my books, trying to tell stories. How can we be reality novelists, reality storytellers, reality screenwriters? This is simply a very crucial subject if you want to win and have an audience now and in the future.
In any case, you are a large storyteller, and the global success of your books confirms it. Thank you very much and I hope your book “Dark Cloud” will shortly find a Polish publisher. It is simply a truly fascinating book that poses critical questions, both existential for our civilization and affecting the everyday life of each of us.
Sonia Priwieziencew
[1] In 2018, France was the first country to come out with a national strategy against imported anti-deforestation (SNDI) to put an end to the import of forest or agricultural products that contribute to deforestation or forest degradation
The strategy is based on seventeen objectives and 5 main guidelines aimed at developing and promoting cognition of deforestation mechanisms, strengthening global cooperation, encouraging request for sustainable products, for example through sustainable public procurement, and encouraging the engagement of economical operators.
Since 2021, SNDI has been enshrined in the Climate and Resilience Act. It has been devoted 4 articles to enable customs data to be made available to the Ministry of Ecological Transition to improve traceability and deforestation hazard assessment tools, to introduce a zero deforestation mark in public procurement for the state, as well as vigilance measures for any of the forest.
