The exploitation, injustice, and waste powering our AI

It's a simple question that any person with a watch can answer with minimal effort. But when you ask an Amazon Echo the same question, a vast system powered by natural resources and human labor is activated to drum up the answer. As many of us reckon with Silicon Valley's impact on the world and consider how it has upended life, work, and even democracy, we also must consider the infrastructure–and the tangible harm it can do–that usually remains hidden beneath these seemingly simple user experiences. It's an aspect of AI that is nearly impossible to comprehend, let alone visualize, but a new map created by the AI researcher Kate Crawford and data visualization specialist Vladan Joler attempts this dizzying task anyway. Called Anatomy of an AI, the map and the corresponding essay lay out the components of the Amazon Echo, from the human workers mining the rare earth materials that power its chips to the black box of Amazon Web Services to the submarine internet cables that pass information across oceans.