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An influencer who attended a “luxury eco-retreat” put on by ChatGPT maker OpenAI got far more of a reaction than she bargained for.
Instagram personality and self-styled “public speaker” Grace McCarrick went on an all-expenses-paid-by-OpenAI gathering alongside other content creators at a high-end resort in upstate New York late last month.
Considering how radioactive the subject of AI and the tech companies leading the construction of extremely environmentally damaging data centers has become lately, the backlash to the thinly-veiled attempt to greenwash the tech was unsurprisingly fierce.
“Can’t wait to show this to the millions of folks who are begging to not have data centers in their backyards because of air and noise pollution but your robe looks cozy,” another influencer commented on a video of McCormick filming herself while wearing a lush bathrobe inside a luxurious bathroom.
In a perfect twist of irony, the video was of her running a bath — an unintentional, albeit hilarious, nod to the enormous amount of fresh water being sucked up by AI data centers, putting people living in drought-stricken regions at risk.
“The Effingham residents in my state of Georgia are about to lose a lot of potable water,” another user wrote. “But glad you go to unwind while we all protest this monstrosity.”
“This is absolutely not the flex you think it is,” a different influencer added.
Despite the extremely public backlash to AI and the associated data centers — a growing bipartisan movement that could potentially influence the upcoming midterm elections — McCarrick was somehow caught off-guard by the outpouring of disappointment.
“I genuinely had no idea that people were this anti-AI,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post a week after attending “OpenAI’s first ever brand trip.”
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