The Hidden Environmental Cost of AI's Growing Presence in Everyday Life
8 Sources
8 Sources
[1]
As AI becomes part of everyday life, it brings a hidden climate cost
Marissa Loewen first started using artificial intelligence in 2014 as a project management tool. She has autism and ADHD and said it helped immensely with organizing her thoughts. "We try to use it conscientiously though because we do realize that there is an impact on the environment," she said. Her personal AI use isn't unique anymore. Now it's a feature in smartphones, search engines, word processors and email services. Every time someone uses AI, it uses energy that is often generated by fossil fuels. That releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change. And it's getting harder to live without it. The climate cost AI is largely powered by data centers that field queries, store data and deploy information. As AI becomes ubiquitous, the power demand for data centers increases, leading to grid reliability problems for people living nearby. "Since we are trying to build data centers at a pace where we cannot integrate more renewable energy resources into the grid, most of the new data centers are being powered by fossil fuels," said Noman Bashir, computing and climate impact fellow with MIT's Climate and Sustainability Consortium. The data centers also generate heat, so they rely on fresh water to stay cool. Larger centers can consume up to 5 million gallons (18.9 million liters) a day, according to an article from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. That's roughly the same as the daily water demand for a town of up to 50,000 people. It's difficult to imagine, because for most users the impact isn't visible, said AI and Climate Lead Sasha Luccioni with the AI company, Hugging Face. "In one of my studies, we found that generating a high-definition image uses as much energy as charging half of your phone. And people were like, 'That can't be right, because when I use Midjourney (a generative AI program), my phone battery doesn't go down,'" she said. Jon Ippolito, professor of new media at the University of Maine, said tech companies are constantly working to make chips and data centers more efficient, but that does not mean AI's environmental impact will shrink. That's because of a problem called the Jevons Paradox. "The cheaper resources get, the more we tend to use them anyway," he said. When cars replaced horses, he said, commute times didn't shrink. We just traveled farther. Quantifying AI's footprint How much those programs contribute to global warming depends on a lot of factors, including how warm it is outside the data center that's processing the query, how clean the grid is and how complex the AI task is. Information sources on AI's contributions to climate change are incomplete and contradictory, so getting exact numbers is difficult. But Ippolito tried anyway. He built an app that compares the environmental footprint of different digital tasks based on the limited data he could find. It estimates that a simple AI prompt, such as, "Tell me the capital of France," uses 23 times more energy than the same question typed into Google without its AI Overview feature. "Instead of working with existing materials, it's writing them from scratch. And that takes a lot more compute," Luccioni said. And that's just for a simple prompt. A complex prompt, such as, "Tell me the number of gummy bears that could fit in the Pacific Ocean," uses 210 times more energy than the AI-free Google search. A 3-second video, according to Ippolito's app, uses 15,000 times as much energy. It's equivalent to turning on an incandescent lightbulb and leaving it on for more than a year. It's got a big impact, but it doesn't mean our tech footprints were carbon-free before AI entered the scene. Watching an hour of Netflix, for example, uses more energy than a complex AI text prompt. An hour on Zoom with 10 people uses 10 times that much. "It's not just about making people conscious of AI's impact, but also all of these digital activities we take for granted," he said. Limit tech, limit tech's climate impact Ippolito said he limits his use of AI when he can. He suggests using human-captured images instead of AI-generated ones. He tells the AI to stop generating as soon as he has the answer to avoid wasting extra energy. He requests concise answers and he begins Google searches by typing "-ai" so it doesn't provide an AI overview for queries where he doesn't need it. Loewen has adopted the same approach. She said she tries to organize her thoughts into one AI query instead of asking it a series of iterative questions. She also built her own AI that doesn't rely on large data centers, which saves energy in the same way watching a movie you own on a DVD is far less taxing than streaming one. "Having something local on your computer in your home allows you to also control your use of the electricity and consumption. It allows you to control your data a little bit more," she said. Luccioni uses Ecosia, which is a search engine that uses efficient algorithms and uses profits to plant trees to minimize the impact of each search. Its AI function can also be turned off. ChatGPT also has a temporary chat function so the queries you send to the data center get deleted after a few weeks instead of taking up data center storage space. But AI is only taking up a fraction of the data center's energy use. Ippolito estimates roughly 85% is data collection from sites like TikTok and Instagram, and cryptocurrency. His answer there: make use of screen time restrictions on your phone to limit time scrolling on social media. Less time means less personal data collected, less energy and water used, and fewer carbon emissions entering the atmosphere. "If you can do anything that cuts a data center out of the equation, I think that's a win," Ippolito said. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
[2]
What To Know About Google's AI Climate Footprint
For the climate concerned, the rise of the AI-reliant internet query is a cause for alarm. Many people have turned to ChatGPT and other services for simple questions. And even basic Google searches include an AI-derived result. Depending on how you crunch the numbers, it's possible to come up with a wide range for the energy usage and related climate cost of an AI query. ChatGPT provides the estimate of up to 0.34 watt-hours per prompt, equivalent to using a household lightbulb for 20 seconds, while one set of researchers concluded that some models may use as much as 100 times more for longer prompts.
[3]
As AI becomes part of everyday life, it brings a hidden climate cost
Marissa Loewen first started using artificial intelligence in 2014 as a project management tool. She has autism and ADHD and said it helped immensely with organizing her thoughts. "We try to use it conscientiously though because we do realize that there is an impact on the environment," she said. Her personal AI use isn't unique anymore. Now it's a feature in smartphones, search engines, word processors and email services. Every time someone uses AI, it uses energy that is often generated by fossil fuels. That releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change. And it's getting harder to live without it. The climate cost AI is largely powered by data centers that field queries, store data and deploy information. As AI becomes ubiquitous, the power demand for data centers increases, leading to grid reliability problems for people living nearby. "Since we are trying to build data centers at a pace where we cannot integrate more renewable energy resources into the grid, most of the new data centers are being powered by fossil fuels," said Noman Bashir, computing and climate impact fellow with MIT's Climate and Sustainability Consortium. The data centers also generate heat, so they rely on fresh water to stay cool. Larger centers can consume up to 5 million gallons (18.9 million liters) a day, according to an article from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. That's roughly the same as the daily water demand for a town of up to 50,000 people. It's difficult to imagine, because for most users the impact isn't visible, said AI and Climate Lead Sasha Luccioni with the AI company, Hugging Face. "In one of my studies, we found that generating a high-definition image uses as much energy as charging half of your phone. And people were like, 'That can't be right, because when I use Midjourney (a generative AI program), my phone battery doesn't go down,'" she said. Jon Ippolito, professor of new media at the University of Maine, said tech companies are constantly working to make chips and data centers more efficient, but that does not mean AI's environmental impact will shrink. That's because of a problem called the Jevons Paradox. "The cheaper resources get, the more we tend to use them anyway," he said. When cars replaced horses, he said, commute times didn't shrink. We just traveled farther. Quantifying AI's footprint How much those programs contribute to global warming depends on a lot of factors, including how warm it is outside the data center that's processing the query, how clean the grid is and how complex the AI task is. Information sources on AI's contributions to climate change are incomplete and contradictory, so getting exact numbers is difficult. But Ippolito tried anyway. He built an app that compares the environmental footprint of different digital tasks based on the limited data he could find. It estimates that a simple AI prompt, such as, "Tell me the capital of France," uses 23 times more energy than the same question typed into Google without its AI Overview feature. "Instead of working with existing materials, it's writing them from scratch. And that takes a lot more compute," Luccioni said. And that's just for a simple prompt. A complex prompt, such as, "Tell me the number of gummy bears that could fit in the Pacific Ocean," uses 210 times more energy than the AI-free Google search. A 3-second video, according to Ippolito's app, uses 15,000 times as much energy. It's equivalent to turning on an incandescent lightbulb and leaving it on for more than a year. It's got a big impact, but it doesn't mean our tech footprints were carbon-free before AI entered the scene. Watching an hour of Netflix, for example, uses more energy than a complex AI text prompt. An hour on Zoom with 10 people uses 10 times that much. "It's not just about making people conscious of AI's impact, but also all of these digital activities we take for granted," he said. Limit tech, limit tech's climate impact Ippolito said he limits his use of AI when he can. He suggests using human-captured images instead of AI-generated ones. He tells the AI to stop generating as soon as he has the answer to avoid wasting extra energy. He requests concise answers and he begins Google searches by typing "-ai" so it doesn't provide an AI overview for queries where he doesn't need it. Loewen has adopted the same approach. She said she tries to organize her thoughts into one AI query instead of asking it a series of iterative questions. She also built her own AI that doesn't rely on large data centers, which saves energy in the same way watching a movie you own on a DVD is far less taxing than streaming one. "Having something local on your computer in your home allows you to also control your use of the electricity and consumption. It allows you to control your data a little bit more," she said. Luccioni uses Ecosia, which is a search engine that uses efficient algorithms and uses profits to plant trees to minimize the impact of each search. Its AI function can also be turned off. ChatGPT also has a temporary chat function so the queries you send to the data center get deleted after a few weeks instead of taking up data center storage space. But AI is only taking up a fraction of the data center's energy use. Ippolito estimates roughly 85% is data collection from sites like TikTok and Instagram, and cryptocurrency. His answer there: make use of screen time restrictions on your phone to limit time scrolling on social media. Less time means less personal data collected, less energy and water used, and fewer carbon emissions entering the atmosphere. "If you can do anything that cuts a data center out of the equation, I think that's a win," Ippolito said. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
[4]
As AI becomes part of everyday life, it brings a hidden climate cost
As AI becomes a part of everyday life, its massive energy and water needs are coming more into focus Marissa Loewen first started using artificial intelligence in 2014 as a project management tool. She has autism and ADHD and said it helped immensely with organizing her thoughts. "We try to use it conscientiously though because we do realize that there is an impact on the environment," she said. Her personal AI use isn't unique anymore. Now it's a feature in smartphones, search engines, word processors and email services. Every time someone uses AI, it uses energy that is often generated by fossil fuels. That releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change. And it's getting harder to live without it. AI is largely powered by data centers that field queries, store data and deploy information. As AI becomes ubiquitous, the power demand for data centers increases, leading to grid reliability problems for people living nearby. "Since we are trying to build data centers at a pace where we cannot integrate more renewable energy resources into the grid, most of the new data centers are being powered by fossil fuels," said Noman Bashir, computing and climate impact fellow with MIT's Climate and Sustainability Consortium. The data centers also generate heat, so they rely on fresh water to stay cool. Larger centers can consume up to 5 million gallons (18.9 million liters) a day, according to an article from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. That's roughly the same as the daily water demand for a town of up to 50,000 people. It's difficult to imagine, because for most users the impact isn't visible, said AI and Climate Lead Sasha Luccioni with the AI company, Hugging Face. "In one of my studies, we found that generating a high-definition image uses as much energy as charging half of your phone. And people were like, 'That can't be right, because when I use Midjourney (a generative AI program), my phone battery doesn't go down,'" she said. Jon Ippolito, professor of new media at the University of Maine, said tech companies are constantly working to make chips and data centers more efficient, but that does not mean AI's environmental impact will shrink. That's because of a problem called the Jevons Paradox. "The cheaper resources get, the more we tend to use them anyway," he said. When cars replaced horses, he said, commute times didn't shrink. We just traveled farther. How much those programs contribute to global warming depends on a lot of factors, including how warm it is outside the data center that's processing the query, how clean the grid is and how complex the AI task is. Information sources on AI's contributions to climate change are incomplete and contradictory, so getting exact numbers is difficult. But Ippolito tried anyway. He built an app that compares the environmental footprint of different digital tasks based on the limited data he could find. It estimates that a simple AI prompt, such as, "Tell me the capital of France," uses 23 times more energy than the same question typed into Google without its AI Overview feature. "Instead of working with existing materials, it's writing them from scratch. And that takes a lot more compute," Luccioni said. And that's just for a simple prompt. A complex prompt, such as, "Tell me the number of gummy bears that could fit in the Pacific Ocean," uses 210 times more energy than the AI-free Google search. A 3-second video, according to Ippolito's app, uses 15,000 times as much energy. It's equivalent to turning on an incandescent lightbulb and leaving it on for more than a year. It's got a big impact, but it doesn't mean our tech footprints were carbon-free before AI entered the scene. Watching an hour of Netflix, for example, uses more energy than a complex AI text prompt. An hour on Zoom with 10 people uses 10 times that much. "It's not just about making people conscious of AI's impact, but also all of these digital activities we take for granted," he said. Ippolito said he limits his use of AI when he can. He suggests using human-captured images instead of AI-generated ones. He tells the AI to stop generating as soon as he has the answer to avoid wasting extra energy. He requests concise answers and he begins Google searches by typing "-ai" so it doesn't provide an AI overview for queries where he doesn't need it. Loewen has adopted the same approach. She said she tries to organize her thoughts into one AI query instead of asking it a series of iterative questions. She also built her own AI that doesn't rely on large data centers, which saves energy in the same way watching a movie you own on a DVD is far less taxing than streaming one. "Having something local on your computer in your home allows you to also control your use of the electricity and consumption. It allows you to control your data a little bit more," she said. Luccioni uses Ecosia, which is a search engine that uses efficient algorithms and uses profits to plant trees to minimize the impact of each search. Its AI function can also be turned off. ChatGPT also has a temporary chat function so the queries you send to the data center get deleted after a few weeks instead of taking up data center storage space. But AI is only taking up a fraction of the data center's energy use. Ippolito estimates roughly 85% is data collection from sites like TikTok and Instagram, and cryptocurrency. His answer there: make use of screen time restrictions on your phone to limit time scrolling on social media. Less time means less personal data collected, less energy and water used, and fewer carbon emissions entering the atmosphere. "If you can do anything that cuts a data center out of the equation, I think that's a win," Ippolito said. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
[5]
As AI Becomes Part of Everyday Life, It Brings a Hidden Climate Cost
Marissa Loewen first started using artificial intelligence in 2014 as a project management tool. She has autism and ADHD and said it helped immensely with organizing her thoughts. "We try to use it conscientiously though because we do realize that there is an impact on the environment," she said. Her personal AI use isn't unique anymore. Now it's a feature in smartphones, search engines, word processors and email services. Every time someone uses AI, it uses energy that is often generated by fossil fuels. That releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change. And it's getting harder to live without it. The climate cost AI is largely powered by data centers that field queries, store data and deploy information. As AI becomes ubiquitous, the power demand for data centers increases, leading to grid reliability problems for people living nearby. "Since we are trying to build data centers at a pace where we cannot integrate more renewable energy resources into the grid, most of the new data centers are being powered by fossil fuels," said Noman Bashir, computing and climate impact fellow with MIT's Climate and Sustainability Consortium. The data centers also generate heat, so they rely on fresh water to stay cool. Larger centers can consume up to 5 million gallons (18.9 million liters) a day, according to an article from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. That's roughly the same as the daily water demand for a town of up to 50,000 people. It's difficult to imagine, because for most users the impact isn't visible, said AI and Climate Lead Sasha Luccioni with the AI company, Hugging Face. "In one of my studies, we found that generating a high-definition image uses as much energy as charging half of your phone. And people were like, 'That can't be right, because when I use Midjourney (a generative AI program), my phone battery doesn't go down,'" she said. Jon Ippolito, professor of new media at the University of Maine, said tech companies are constantly working to make chips and data centers more efficient, but that does not mean AI's environmental impact will shrink. That's because of a problem called the Jevons Paradox. "The cheaper resources get, the more we tend to use them anyway," he said. When cars replaced horses, he said, commute times didn't shrink. We just traveled farther. Quantifying AI's footprint How much those programs contribute to global warming depends on a lot of factors, including how warm it is outside the data center that's processing the query, how clean the grid is and how complex the AI task is. Information sources on AI's contributions to climate change are incomplete and contradictory, so getting exact numbers is difficult. But Ippolito tried anyway. He built an app that compares the environmental footprint of different digital tasks based on the limited data he could find. It estimates that a simple AI prompt, such as, "Tell me the capital of France," uses 23 times more energy than the same question typed into Google without its AI Overview feature. "Instead of working with existing materials, it's writing them from scratch. And that takes a lot more compute," Luccioni said. And that's just for a simple prompt. A complex prompt, such as, "Tell me the number of gummy bears that could fit in the Pacific Ocean," uses 210 times more energy than the AI-free Google search. A 3-second video, according to Ippolito's app, uses 15,000 times as much energy. It's equivalent to turning on an incandescent lightbulb and leaving it on for more than a year. It's got a big impact, but it doesn't mean our tech footprints were carbon-free before AI entered the scene. Watching an hour of Netflix, for example, uses more energy than a complex AI text prompt. An hour on Zoom with 10 people uses 10 times that much. "It's not just about making people conscious of AI's impact, but also all of these digital activities we take for granted," he said. Limit tech, limit tech's climate impact Ippolito said he limits his use of AI when he can. He suggests using human-captured images instead of AI-generated ones. He tells the AI to stop generating as soon as he has the answer to avoid wasting extra energy. He requests concise answers and he begins Google searches by typing "-ai" so it doesn't provide an AI overview for queries where he doesn't need it. Loewen has adopted the same approach. She said she tries to organize her thoughts into one AI query instead of asking it a series of iterative questions. She also built her own AI that doesn't rely on large data centers, which saves energy in the same way watching a movie you own on a DVD is far less taxing than streaming one. "Having something local on your computer in your home allows you to also control your use of the electricity and consumption. It allows you to control your data a little bit more," she said. Luccioni uses Ecosia, which is a search engine that uses efficient algorithms and uses profits to plant trees to minimize the impact of each search. Its AI function can also be turned off. ChatGPT also has a temporary chat function so the queries you send to the data center get deleted after a few weeks instead of taking up data center storage space. But AI is only taking up a fraction of the data center's energy use. Ippolito estimates roughly 85% is data collection from sites like TikTok and Instagram, and cryptocurrency. His answer there: make use of screen time restrictions on your phone to limit time scrolling on social media. Less time means less personal data collected, less energy and water used, and fewer carbon emissions entering the atmosphere. "If you can do anything that cuts a data center out of the equation, I think that's a win," Ippolito said. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
[6]
As AI Becomes a Part of Everyday Life, It Brings a Hidden Climate Cost
Marissa Loewen first started using artificial intelligence in 2014 as a project management tool. She has autism and ADHD and said it helped immensely with organizing her thoughts. "We try to use it conscientiously though because we do realize that there is an impact on the environment," she said. Her personal AI use isn't unique anymore. Now it's a feature in smartphones, search engines, word processors and email services. Every time someone uses AI, it uses energy that is often generated by fossil fuels. That releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change. And it's getting harder to live without it. AI is largely powered by data centers that field queries, store data and deploy information. As AI becomes ubiquitous, the power demand for data centers increases, leading to grid reliability problems for people living nearby. "Since we are trying to build data centers at a pace where we cannot integrate more renewable energy resources into the grid, most of the new data centers are being powered by fossil fuels," said Noman Bashir, computing and climate impact fellow with MIT's Climate and Sustainability Consortium. The data centers also generate heat, so they rely on fresh water to stay cool. Larger centers can consume up to 5 million gallons (18.9 million liters) a day, according to an article from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. That's roughly the same as the daily water demand for a town of up to 50,000 people. It's difficult to imagine, because for most users the impact isn't visible, said AI and Climate Lead Sasha Luccioni with the AI company, Hugging Face. "In one of my studies, we found that generating a high-definition image uses as much energy as charging half of your phone. And people were like, 'That can't be right, because when I use Midjourney (a generative AI program), my phone battery doesn't go down,'" she said. Jon Ippolito, professor of new media at the University of Maine, said tech companies are constantly working to make chips and data centers more efficient, but that does not mean AI's environmental impact will shrink. That's because of a problem called the Jevons Paradox. "The cheaper resources get, the more we tend to use them anyway," he said. When cars replaced horses, he said, commute times didn't shrink. We just traveled farther. How much those programs contribute to global warming depends on a lot of factors, including how warm it is outside the data center that's processing the query, how clean the grid is and how complex the AI task is. Information sources on AI's contributions to climate change are incomplete and contradictory, so getting exact numbers is difficult. But Ippolito tried anyway. He built an app that compares the environmental footprint of different digital tasks based on the limited data he could find. It estimates that a simple AI prompt, such as, "Tell me the capital of France," uses 23 times more energy than the same question typed into Google without its AI Overview feature. "Instead of working with existing materials, it's writing them from scratch. And that takes a lot more compute," Luccioni said. And that's just for a simple prompt. A complex prompt, such as, "Tell me the number of gummy bears that could fit in the Pacific Ocean," uses 210 times more energy than the AI-free Google search. A 3-second video, according to Ippolito's app, uses 15,000 times as much energy. It's equivalent to turning on an incandescent lightbulb and leaving it on for more than a year. It's got a big impact, but it doesn't mean our tech footprints were carbon-free before AI entered the scene. Watching an hour of Netflix, for example, uses more energy than a complex AI text prompt. An hour on Zoom with 10 people uses 10 times that much. "It's not just about making people conscious of AI's impact, but also all of these digital activities we take for granted," he said. Ippolito said he limits his use of AI when he can. He suggests using human-captured images instead of AI-generated ones. He tells the AI to stop generating as soon as he has the answer to avoid wasting extra energy. He requests concise answers and he begins Google searches by typing "-ai" so it doesn't provide an AI overview for queries where he doesn't need it. Loewen has adopted the same approach. She said she tries to organize her thoughts into one AI query instead of asking it a series of iterative questions. She also built her own AI that doesn't rely on large data centers, which saves energy in the same way watching a movie you own on a DVD is far less taxing than streaming one. "Having something local on your computer in your home allows you to also control your use of the electricity and consumption. It allows you to control your data a little bit more," she said. Luccioni uses Ecosia, which is a search engine that uses efficient algorithms and uses profits to plant trees to minimize the impact of each search. Its AI function can also be turned off. ChatGPT also has a temporary chat function so the queries you send to the data center get deleted after a few weeks instead of taking up data center storage space. But AI is only taking up a fraction of the data center's energy use. Ippolito estimates roughly 85 percent is data collection from sites like TikTok and Instagram, and cryptocurrency. His answer there: make use of screen time restrictions on your phone to limit time scrolling on social media. Less time means less personal data collected, less energy and water used, and fewer carbon emissions entering the atmosphere. "If you can do anything that cuts a data center out of the equation, I think that's a win," Ippolito said.
[7]
As AI becomes part of everyday life, it brings a hidden climate cost - The Economic Times
Marissa Loewen first started using artificial intelligence in 2014 as a project management tool. She has autism and ADHD and said it helped immensely with organizing her thoughts. "We try to use it conscientiously though because we do realize that there is an impact on the environment," she said. Her personal AI use isn't unique anymore. Now it's a feature in smartphones, search engines, word processors and email services. Every time someone uses AI, it uses energy that is often generated by fossil fuels. That releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change. And it's getting harder to live without it. The climate cost AI is largely powered by data centers that field queries, store data and deploy information. As AI becomes ubiquitous, the power demand for data centers increases, leading to grid reliability problems for people living nearby. "Since we are trying to build data centers at a pace where we cannot integrate more renewable energy resources into the grid, most of the new data centers are being powered by fossil fuels," said Noman Bashir, computing and climate impact fellow with MIT's Climate and Sustainability Consortium. The data centers also generate heat, so they rely on fresh water to stay cool. Larger centers can consume up to 5 million gallons (18.9 million liters) a day, according to an article from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. That's roughly the same as the daily water demand for a town of up to 50,000 people. It's difficult to imagine, because for most users the impact isn't visible, said AI and Climate Lead Sasha Luccioni with the AI company, Hugging Face. "In one of my studies, we found that generating a high-definition image uses as much energy as charging half of your phone. And people were like, 'That can't be right, because when I use Midjourney (a generative AI program), my phone battery doesn't go down,'" she said. Jon Ippolito, professor of new media at the University of Maine, said tech companies are constantly working to make chips and data centers more efficient, but that does not mean AI's environmental impact will shrink. That's because of a problem called the Jevons Paradox. "The cheaper resources get, the more we tend to use them anyway," he said. When cars replaced horses, he said, commute times didn't shrink. We just traveled farther. Quantifying AI's footprint How much those programs contribute to global warming depends on a lot of factors, including how warm it is outside the data center that's processing the query, how clean the grid is and how complex the AI task is. Information sources on AI's contributions to climate change are incomplete and contradictory, so getting exact numbers is difficult. But Ippolito tried anyway. He built an app that compares the environmental footprint of different digital tasks based on the limited data he could find. It estimates that a simple AI prompt, such as, "Tell me the capital of France," uses 23 times more energy than the same question typed into Google without its AI Overview feature. "Instead of working with existing materials, it's writing them from scratch. And that takes a lot more compute," Luccioni said. And that's just for a simple prompt. A complex prompt, such as, "Tell me the number of gummy bears that could fit in the Pacific Ocean," uses 210 times more energy than the AI-free Google search. A 3-second video, according to Ippolito's app, uses 15,000 times as much energy. It's equivalent to turning on an incandescent lightbulb and leaving it on for more than a year. It's got a big impact, but it doesn't mean our tech footprints were carbon-free before AI entered the scene. Watching an hour of Netflix, for example, uses more energy than a complex AI text prompt. An hour on Zoom with 10 people uses 10 times that much. "It's not just about making people conscious of AI's impact, but also all of these digital activities we take for granted," he said. Limit tech, limit tech's climate impact Ippolito said he limits his use of AI when he can. He suggests using human-captured images instead of AI-generated ones. He tells the AI to stop generating as soon as he has the answer to avoid wasting extra energy. He requests concise answers and he begins Google searches by typing "-ai" so it doesn't provide an AI overview for queries where he doesn't need it. Loewen has adopted the same approach. She said she tries to organize her thoughts into one AI query instead of asking it a series of iterative questions. She also built her own AI that doesn't rely on large data centers, which saves energy in the same way watching a movie you own on a DVD is far less taxing than streaming one. "Having something local on your computer in your home allows you to also control your use of the electricity and consumption. It allows you to control your data a little bit more," she said. Luccioni uses Ecosia, which is a search engine that uses efficient algorithms and uses profits to plant trees to minimize the impact of each search. Its AI function can also be turned off. ChatGPT also has a temporary chat function so the queries you send to the data center get deleted after a few weeks instead of taking up data center storage space. But AI is only taking up a fraction of the data center's energy use. Ippolito estimates roughly 85% is data collection from sites like TikTok and Instagram, and cryptocurrency. His answer there: make use of screen time restrictions on your phone to limit time scrolling on social media. Less time means less personal data collected, less energy and water used, and fewer carbon emissions entering the atmosphere. "If you can do anything that cuts a data center out of the equation, I think that's a win," Ippolito said.
[8]
As AI becomes part of everyday life, it brings a hidden climate cost
Marissa Loewen first started using artificial intelligence in 2014 as a project management tool. She has autism and ADHD and said it helped immensely with organizing her thoughts. "We try to use it conscientiously though because we do realize that there is an impact on the environment," she said. Her personal AI use isn't unique anymore. Now it's a feature in smartphones, search engines, word processors and email services. Every time someone uses AI, it uses energy that is often generated by fossil fuels. That releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change. And it's getting harder to live without it. AI is largely powered by data centres that field queries, store data and deploy information. As AI becomes ubiquitous, the power demand for data centres increases, leading to grid reliability problems for people living nearby. "Since we are trying to build data centres at a pace where we cannot integrate more renewable energy resources into the grid, most of the new data centres are being powered by fossil fuels," said Noman Bashir, computing and climate impact fellow with MIT's Climate and Sustainability Consortium. The data centres also generate heat, so they rely on fresh water to stay cool. Larger centres can consume up to 5 million gallons (18.9 million liters) a day, according to an article from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. That's roughly the same as the daily water demand for a town of up to 50,000 people. It's difficult to imagine, because for most users the impact isn't visible, said AI and Climate Lead Sasha Luccioni with the AI company, Hugging Face. "In one of my studies, we found that generating a high-definition image uses as much energy as charging half of your phone. And people were like, 'That can't be right, because when I use Midjourney (a generative AI program), my phone battery doesn't go down,'" she said. Jon Ippolito, professor of new media at the University of Maine, said tech companies are constantly working to make chips and data centres more efficient, but that does not mean AI's environmental impact will shrink. That's because of a problem called the Jevons Paradox. "The cheaper resources get, the more we tend to use them anyway," he said. When cars replaced horses, he said, commute times didn't shrink. We just traveled farther. How much those programs contribute to global warming depends on a lot of factors, including how warm it is outside the data centre that's processing the query, how clean the grid is and how complex the AI task is. Information sources on AI's contributions to climate change are incomplete and contradictory, so getting exact numbers is difficult. But Ippolito tried anyway. He built an app that compares the environmental footprint of different digital tasks based on the limited data he could find. It estimates that a simple AI prompt, such as, "Tell me the capital of France," uses 23 times more energy than the same question typed into Google without its AI Overview feature. "Instead of working with existing materials, it's writing them from scratch. And that takes a lot more compute," Luccioni said. And that's just for a simple prompt. A complex prompt, such as, "Tell me the number of gummy bears that could fit in the Pacific Ocean," uses 210 times more energy than the AI-free Google search. A 3-second video, according to Ippolito's app, uses 15,000 times as much energy. It's equivalent to turning on an incandescent lightbulb and leaving it on for more than a year. It's got a big impact, but it doesn't mean our tech footprints were carbon-free before AI entered the scene. Watching an hour of Netflix, for example, uses more energy than a complex AI text prompt. An hour on Zoom with 10 people uses 10 times that much. "It's not just about making people conscious of AI's impact, but also all of these digital activities we take for granted," he said. Ippolito said he limits his use of AI when he can. He suggests using human-captured images instead of AI-generated ones. He tells the AI to stop generating as soon as he has the answer to avoid wasting extra energy. He requests concise answers and he begins Google searches by typing "-ai" so it doesn't provide an AI overview for queries where he doesn't need it. Loewen has adopted the same approach. She said she tries to organize her thoughts into one AI query instead of asking it a series of iterative questions. She also built her own AI that doesn't rely on large data centres, which saves energy in the same way watching a movie you own on a DVD is far less taxing than streaming one. "Having something local on your computer in your home allows you to also control your use of the electricity and consumption. It allows you to control your data a little bit more," she said. Luccioni uses Ecosia, which is a search engine that uses efficient algorithms and uses profits to plant trees to minimize the impact of each search. Its AI function can also be turned off. ChatGPT also has a temporary chat function so the queries you send to the data centre get deleted after a few weeks instead of taking up data centre storage space. But AI is only taking up a fraction of the data centre's energy use. Ippolito estimates roughly 85% is data collection from sites like TikTok and Instagram, and cryptocurrency. His answer there: make use of screen time restrictions on your phone to limit time scrolling on social media. Less time means less personal data collected, less energy and water used, and fewer carbon emissions entering the atmosphere. "If you can do anything that cuts a data centre out of the equation, I think that's a win," Ippolito said. ___
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As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into daily activities, concerns arise about its substantial energy consumption and environmental impact, prompting experts to suggest ways to mitigate these effects.
The Rise of AI and Its Environmental Impact
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into our daily lives, from smartphones to search engines, its environmental impact is coming under scrutiny. Marissa Loewen, an early adopter of AI for project management, highlights the need for conscious use due to its environmental implications
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.The Hidden Climate Cost of AI
Source: Inc. Magazine
AI's operations are primarily powered by data centers, which are responsible for fielding queries, storing data, and deploying information. As AI usage grows, so does the demand for these centers, leading to increased energy consumption and potential grid reliability issues
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.Noman Bashir, a computing and climate impact fellow at MIT's Climate and Sustainability Consortium, points out a critical problem: "Since we are trying to build data centers at a pace where we cannot integrate more renewable energy resources into the grid, most of the new data centers are being powered by fossil fuels"
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.Water Consumption and Energy Use
Data centers not only consume significant amounts of electricity but also require vast quantities of water for cooling. Larger centers can use up to 5 million gallons (18.9 million liters) of water daily, equivalent to the water demand of a town with 50,000 residents
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.Sasha Luccioni, AI and Climate Lead at Hugging Face, provides a tangible example: "generating a high-definition image uses as much energy as charging half of your phone"
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.Quantifying AI's Environmental Footprint
Source: TIME
Jon Ippolito, a professor of new media at the University of Maine, has developed an app to compare the environmental impact of various digital tasks. His findings are striking:
- A simple AI prompt uses 23 times more energy than a standard Google search
- A complex AI prompt consumes 210 times more energy than a non-AI search
- A 3-second AI-generated video uses 15,000 times more energy, equivalent to leaving an incandescent bulb on for over a year
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However, it's important to note that other digital activities also have significant energy costs. For instance, watching an hour of Netflix uses more energy than a complex AI text prompt, and an hour-long Zoom call with 10 participants uses 10 times that amount
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.Related Stories
Mitigating AI's Environmental Impact
Experts suggest several ways to reduce AI's environmental footprint:
- Limit AI use when possible and opt for human-captured images over AI-generated ones
- Request concise answers and stop AI generation once the required information is obtained
- Use local AI models that don't rely on large data centers
- Employ eco-friendly search engines like Ecosia, which uses efficient algorithms and plants trees
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Ippolito estimates that AI currently accounts for only a fraction of data center energy use, with about 85% attributed to data collection from social media sites and cryptocurrency
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.The Broader Picture
While AI's environmental impact is concerning, it's part of a larger issue of digital technology's energy consumption. As Jon Ippolito notes, "It's not just about making people conscious of AI's impact, but also all of these digital activities we take for granted"
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.The challenge lies in balancing the benefits of AI with its environmental costs, a task that will require conscious effort from both users and developers in the coming years.
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