The real cost of AI is being paid in deserts far from Silicon Valley

When Sonia Ramos was a child, she witnessed an accident that would shape the rest of her life. She was born into a mining family in Chile. Her father worked for an American copper company; she grew up among the children of the other workers. In 1957, a part of the Chuquicamata mine collapsed, killing several people and injuring dozens more. Though her father was spared, she remembers watching the wretchedness of the aftermath unfold around her: affected families spiraling into…