A Marxist Political Ecology Reflection on Artificial Intelligence Ecological Issues

The hardware infrastructure that underpins artificial intelligence technology generates significant carbon and water footprints, and its entire industrial chain further exacerbates resource consumption and pollution risks. Against this backdrop, "Marxist Political Ecology" provides a valuable perspective for understanding the ecological and environmental issues of emerging technologies. In terms of the possibility of critique, the global spread of ecological crises and the traditional critique of technological capitalization together constitute the legitimacy basis for analyzing emerging technologies; from the perspective of current necessity, the widespread depoliticization tendencies in technological development and ecological governance urgently require critical theory to reveal the underlying power relations and structural contradictions. Through the lens of “Marxist Political Ecology”, it becomes clear that artificial intelligence at the technological level is essentially still within the realm of “traditional machines”: its high dependence on natural and data resources intensifies economic and ecological unequal exchange, and its operation supported by traditional fossil energy inevitably perpetuates existing inequalities. Promoting the “political ecologization” of artificial intelligence may be the only way to break the symbiotic dilemma of technological hegemony and ecological crisis.