Can Artificial Intelligence Slow Down Our Race To Climate Sustainability?
Artificial Intelligence might be slowing down our race towards environmental sustainability. And here's how.
"The proliferation of AI and big data has created a digital "gas guzzler" effect, where the benefits of innovation come with a hefty energy price tag."
Chris Gladwin, Founder Of Ocient.
With advanced AI-enabled technologies, making life easier and business more efficient comes a hefty cost—a big climate cost!
Data is the oil of the modern world, and like oil, it has tremendous adverse effects on our environment.
AI depends on data—it is literally the blood of AI.
Without data, AI will not exist.
The hunger for more data to power more advanced AI technologies is gradually creating a problem for us.
Artificial Intelligence might be slowing down our race towards environmental sustainability. And here's how.
Building responsible AI is not just about ensuring AI does not hurt people; it's also about making sure it doesn't hurt our planet.
AI has come under fresh fire following environmental incidents like the recent California disaster, which caused billions of dollars in damages. Climate and AI scientists are renewing their scrutiny of AIs' contribution to climate change.
Artificial intelligence models like the famous ChatGPT by OpenAI need a lot of computing data to operate.
Recently, scientists and experts have even said that AI might have guzzled up all the human information to train itself and that what it now uses or will be using is what they call "synthetic data", that is, AI now producing data itself to train itself.
From the data and energy perspective, AI will need even more computing energy to produce synthetic data to train itself.
That means what?
More energy!
More energy means more punches to the environment.
The emails we send using ChatGPT, the prompts we pump into the model, whether it's helping with writing a blog post, a meeting review, or just asking ChatGPT to write a funny joke for your amusement, take a lot of computing power that requires massive data centres to process all the queries in codes coming from millions of people around the world.
These data centres use a lot of electricity and water to keep their engines cool. If they allow these engines to heat up! Poof! The end!
So, the behemoths like Google, Meta, Microsoft and the rest need to keep these machines running 24/7, and as AI continues to advance and bring more growth and money to these companies and make our lives easier—ironically, the energy requirement also increases and will, over time, begin to strain on our natural resources, like water. The most critical of them all.
Listen to this.
In 2026, the energy consumption per the International Energy Agency of global data centres could more than double, reaching levels that exceed large nations! Take note that the global energy market still heavily depends on fossil fuels. Our going green dream may be taking longer than usual to achieve with the way we're beginning to rely on AI.
Reports and research have also discovered that ChatGPT, which uses the GPT-4 language model, consumes 519 millilitres or just a bottle of water to write a 100-word email! That's a lot for one email. Don't you think so?
435 million litres of water! That's what ChatGPT needs to write an email a week for 1 in 10 US residents; that's 16 million people!
Reports have also suggested that AI has the potential to increase fossil fuel yield by 15%, potentially delaying the global transition to green renewable energy.
I am beginning to wonder how much energy and resources future super-models would need to function properly.
Would it be worth it? Or, in the not-too-distant future, we could finally discover green, clean energy that can do as much work as fossil energy. Maybe.
Though we haven't reached the point where we should be scared of AI's use of natural resources (according to experts) it's crucial we begin to take preventive steps toward the future.
With AI advancing fast, the time will definitely come when we will need to start worrying about its environmental impact. Action should start now, not when we're neck-deep in AI reliance and begin to have a natural resource depletion disaster because of AI's enormous energy consumption.
Another Problem To Solve
One of the most fascinating characteristics of innovation is that the more problems we solve, the more problems emerge from the problems we solve or are solving.
The energy-guzzling adverse effect of AI has already created a problem for innovators. Now, we've got companies and startups already working on designing systems that allow AI to operate efficiently and conserve energy as much as possible.
To create an AI-powered future, we must approach building from a 360-degree perspective.
We shouldn't get carried away by the excitement that comes with new advanced AI models doing interesting things. We need to count the cost and ensure that AI is safe and responsible from all angles.
Building responsible AI is not just about ensuring AI does not hurt people; it's also about making sure it doesn't hurt our planet.
How Can We Build AI That Will Not Hurt The Environment?
Chris Gladwin, Founder Of Ocient, a startup dedicated to helping AI companies discover efficient ways and methods of building AI, presents the following suggestions.
Think Longterm and Future
Chris Gladwins admonishes leaders and companies to think beyond immediate gains and company growth and instead focus on sustainability, that is, building adaptable and scalable solutions.
"What you design today should be adaptable and scalable as demands change. This means building systems that can evolve, not just exist as one-off solutions." - Chris Gladwins.
Prioritise Pursuing Energy Sustainability From Today
He advises business leaders to consider the overall cost of running their business, and pursue energy-efficient systems and methods, and seriously prioritise sustainability.
And finally,
Embracing A Systems Mindset
"Just as restoring an ecosystem requires more than planting a few trees, building AI capabilities requires more than just deploying models." - Chris Gladwins.
Chris Gladwin strongly believes in sustainability.
His ideas and philosophy about sustainability revolve around investing in the right infrastructure that can evolve over time.
This can only be made possible when companies are intentional about investing in systems that are efficient in all aspects of the AI design and development process (energy efficiency, storage, and computing) and think way beyond short-term gains.
As we enjoy AI and use it to make our lives and work easier, we must also understand what happens behind the wall.
Understanding what transpires before results are brought to us will give us a different perspective as we also become ambassadors for responsible AI.
Our maiden Healthcare Leadership And Innovation Webinar is taking place tomorrow! Registrations are still open for friends like you who’ve not yet registered.
We will be talking about the role of artificial intelligence in expanding access to quality healthcare in Africa.
This is your chance to hop on the global AI conversation and prepare yourself for the future of healthcare.
And invite your network, community, colleagues, and friends!
The more, the merrier!