As an avid user of TikTok, my FYP is constantly filled with AI (artificial intelligence) headlines. People on my feed are using AI to make grocery lists, text their crush back, create random pictures and to just converse with. While AI has revolutionized technology and already tackled many problems, it’s not as perfect of a solution as it may seem. AI has been recently implicated in many environmental problems, and tackling this issue is hugely important.
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First, it’s important to understand what artificial intelligence really is, and how it works. Artificial intelligence is made to be a replica of human intelligence for uses such as problem-solving and reasoning that only human intelligence has been capable of. AI has to be trained by using algorithms, data, and pattern recognition to recreate human intelligence. By training AI with data created by humans, AI can replicate similar patterns when you ask it to do something that it has seen before. So if you ask AI to create an image of an object, it will use objects that it has seen before to create an image that aligns with what you are asking of it. This requires massive amounts of energy to train these computers to mimic human intelligence.
Water consumption is one of the main ways that AI impacts the environment. AI works through large data centers that host computer servers. Just as your computer heats up when doing lots of work, these large servers heat up very quickly and water systems are in place to cool these facilities. Recent estimates have said that AI is soon to consume six times more water than the entire country of Denmark. Every time AI is used, more and more water is consumed to cool down these facilities, and this can be prevented by limiting the use of AI to scientific and experimental usage only.
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However, while AI’s effects on water consumption have been recently in the media, there are many more ways that AI is harming the environment. Since these data centers are massive facilities that use so much energy, these centers are burning massive amounts of fossil fuels contributing to the greenhouse gases that are warming the climate. While AI is used similarly to a Google search, it uses 10 times electricity than a Google search. Data centers are now even the 11th largest electricity consumer in the world, just trailing behind certain countries like France. This massive amount of energy that data centers use, could potentially boost carbon emissions by an additional 80%. Many people who are using AI don’t know that a simple question uses much more energy than something that could be asked on Google, and that this use of energy is contributing to the climate crisis.
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Since AI is relatively new within the technology industry, we have only just begun to see the effects that it is having on the environment. However, in years to come when AI becomes more regulated and less distinguishable from human intelligence, the havoc it will wreak on the environment will be undeniable. Since AI has become more and more accessible to the public, the environmental impact has grown tremendously. It’s time that we regulate the use of artificial intelligence to protect our environment.
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