While AI has many benefits for convenience, it is not a force for good, and therefore must be regulated, as Grok's widespread generation of sexually explicit images of children has proven. Grok is run by the platform of X and the European headquarters of X is just a 20-minute walk from this Chamber, so there is no excuse for the Government not to act immediately. While AI is a form of high-tech plagiarism, and certainly makes life easier in a range of areas, convenience generally comes at a price. It is a kind of Trojan horse that we invite into our lives. The infrastructure that makes AI possible is a network of data centres. AI has significantly driven the demand for the roll-out of such centres across Ireland. These centres service the needs of transnational corporations and their profit models first and foremost. The multimillion euro corporation Echelon is planning to install two such centres in my local area, just outside Arklow. However, data centres and AI come at a high cost to the local consumer. I attended its glitzy reception in the Arklow Bay Hotel last year. However, Echelon conveniently did not tell us about the cost, nor do politicians who seem fanatical about AI and the rolling out of such data centres. They are okay with proliferating a vast network of centres in Ireland so that we have to bear the burden and process an ever-growing load of social media content from much of the world's population. They talk up and greatly exaggerate the supposed benefits but conveniently do not mention the high cost to upgrade our electricity network, a cost borne by Joe and Josephine Public in their electricity bills. We know that an AI search consumes between ten and 30 times the amount of energy of a normal Google search and that one data centre alone can consume an equivalent amount of electricity to the city of Kilkenny on a daily basis. Meta uses 3.1 billion litres of water for the cooling systems of its data centres each year. Numerous groups and even senior departmental officials, in a confidential memo, warned Government Ministers that Ireland's rapid growth in data centres to facilitate AI is using up electricity capacity and adding to the risks around energy costs and climate targets. They estimate that these centres, to power AI, will devour 31%, or just under one third, of Ireland's electricity by 2030 and that this will affect homeowners in getting connections to the electricity grid. On the morning of Echelon's launch, we officially opened the Arklow wastewater treatment plant nearby, which will allow for badly needed housing development to take off in the town, which could not take place previously. What guarantee is there that these future homeowners will be able to connect to the electricity grid? Who will be given precedence, the local Joe or Josephine Public, or a multibillion euro corporation? Of course, Government politicians will not mention that inconvenient truth, because Ireland, is in effect, getting prostituted out for the interests of big tech corporations.

Sentiment score: 0.07