Concept
Jevons Paradox
SustainabilityClimateAI
When a technology that uses a resource becomes more efficient, total consumption of that resource rises rather than falls.
The systemic feedback loop William Stanley Jevons observed in 1865 around coal and steam engines. Efficiency lowers the per-unit cost; cheaper activity spreads, finds new uses, and generates fresh waves of demand that more than offset the savings. In the age of AI, data centres, and large language models, the paradox returns at digital scale and exponential speed: every new efficiency announcement finances a new market expansion.
Essays that develop this concept
Related concepts
- Algorithmic SurrenderThe quiet, voluntary handover of decision to the machine in the name of convenience.
- Decoupling ThesisThe claim that economic growth can be decoupled from resource consumption.
- Attention MiningAn industry in which human attention is extracted and depleted like a natural resource.
- Epistemic WeaponisationAn information strategy targeting the status of truth, not its content.