GenAI and the Environment
David Atkinson
AI Legal Counsel | A.I. Ethics and Law | University Lecturer | Veteran
This is Part 2 of our mini-series on GenAI and its impact on energy and the environment.
Location, Location, Location
The state in which the AI companies run their servers and build their data centers greatly impacts how harmful the energy is to the environment. This is because different states get their energy from different ratios of sources.
But GenAI Will Solve the Climate Problem, Right?
The AI boom since late 2022 has incentivized companies like Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, and Google to use more electricity. Executives for those companies often claim that AI will eventually develop the breakthrough technology needed to solve global warming, but so far, no such breakthrough exists or is on the horizon. Still, carbon emissions grow.?
According to Wired, Google’s “energy consumption doubled from 2019 to 2023.” But Google was quick to pass on the blame, arguing that “Reducing emissions from our suppliers is extremely challenging, which makes up 75 percent of our footprint.” This was referring to the?“manufacturers of servers, networking equipment, and other technical infrastructure for the data centers—an energy-intensive process that is required to create physical parts for frontier AI models.”[1]
Microsoft hasn’t fared better, seeing increases in both megawatts of energy consumed and in liters of water used to cool its data centers.
The Wall Street Journal shares a few additional unpleasant factoids:[2]
If AI is going to lead to a technological breakthrough to solve the climate crisis, it needs to happen soon.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/ai-energy-demands-water-impact-internet-hyper-consumption-era/
[2] https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/big-tech-is-rushing-to-find-clean-power-to-fuel-ais-insatiable-appetite-31f91330?st=CRbJ9L&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
The following students from the University of Texas at Austin contributed to the editing and writing of the content of LEAI: Carter E. Moxley, Brian Villamar, Ananya Venkataramaiah, Parth Mehta, Lou Kahn, Vishal Rachpaudi, Chibudom Okereke, Isaac Lerma, Colton Clements, Catalina Mollai, Thaddeus Kvietok, Maria Carmona, Mikayla Francisco, Aaliyah Mcfarlin