Kate Crawford

Scholar of AI’s material and political costs, author of “Atlas of AI” and senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research, who warns that AI is built on extraction of minerals, water, energy and labour and concentrates power in few hands.

Roles

2012 – presentSenior Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research New YorkStart year as given by third-party biographies; Microsoft's own page states none.Source →
2017 – presentCo-founder and Director of Research, AI Now Institute, New York UniversityFounded with Meredith Whittaker.Source →
2019 – presentInaugural Visiting Chair, AI and Justice, École Normale Supérieure, ParisSource →

On the record

20 May 2026 · Interview · Harvard Design Magazine
This is the biggest infrastructure that we've built as a species, dwarfing the Manhattan Project in terms of capital, land, and energy outlay.
Inaugural Visiting Chair, AI and Justice, École Normale Supérieure, Paris at the time
On the data-centre build-out behind generative AI.
Kate Crawford & Marina Otero Verzier on Hyperscale Data Centers →
Sept 2025 · Op-ed · e-flux Architecture
The metabolic rift between humans and AI threatens multiple forms of failure: model collapse, ecological collapse, and cognitive collapse.
Inaugural Visiting Chair, AI and Justice, École Normale Supérieure, Paris at the time
Eating the Future: The Metabolic Logic of AI Slop →
20 Feb 2024 · Op-ed · Nature
The full planetary costs of generative AI are closely guarded corporate secrets… Within years, large AI systems are likely to need as much energy as entire nations.
Inaugural Visiting Chair, AI and Justice, École Normale Supérieure, Paris at the time
Generative AI's environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret →
23 Apr 2021 · Interview · MIT Technology Review
Let's actually look at who's running the levers of these systems. That means shifting away from just focusing on things like ethical principles to talking about power.
Inaugural Visiting Chair, AI and Justice, École Normale Supérieure, Paris at the time
On publication of "Atlas of AI".
Stop talking about AI ethics. It's time to talk about power. →
6 Apr 2021 · Op-ed · Nature
The pandemic is being used as a pretext to push unproven artificial-intelligence tools into workplaces and schools.
Inaugural Visiting Chair, AI and Justice, École Normale Supérieure, Paris at the time
Time to regulate AI that interprets human emotions →