The debate is between those who argue that much has to be done to make AI green and those who argue that green AI is already here.
First, it was agriculture. Then, it was industry, followed by oil and petrochemicals. Then, it was computing. And finally, humanity arrived at the artificial intelligence revolution — the potential of which has the power to revolutionize everything from creative industries, to white-collar work and beyond. But what this new revolution needs is power, and lots of it. We all can quote the statistics by heart: an AI search uses roughly ten times more energy than a Google search, not to mention all of the water that is needed to cool the data centers that are fueling the processors of ChatGPT et al.
AI is here to stay. There’s no question about that. The genie is already out of the bottle. But faced with a warming planet, can AI be made green, or is it something that can only accelerate global warming and thus serve as another stone on the path to planetary annihilation?
To Read the Pro Side of This Debate, Go Here.
The pro side of this argument argues that, yes, AI is a perpetually energy-hungry machine. By 2050, computing will be the single largest source of commercial power demand, and potentially green sources of energy such as solar, wind, and hydropower are all still unreliable and subject to the elements. Given the ever-present attraction of AI for corporations and the public — ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in January 2023, just two months after launching, making it the fastest-growing application in history — an acceptable source of energy must be found to serve as a stopgap until solar and wind energy have reached technological maturity. The good news is that there is one.
To Read the Con Side of This Debate, Go Here.
The con side of this argument points out that AI has the potential to be either a bottleneck or a breakthrough for the clean energy sector. This is largely due to the fact that AI is rapidly rising along a steep growth curve and, if nothing is done, will begin to mimic heavy industry in terms of carbon emissions. Further complicating matters is the fact that even if the pledges of AI companies to be green hold true, the sector risks becoming a green energy hog, as other companies cannot match the size of the pocketbooks wielded by the big AI companies. However, all is not lost. There is a way out that can make AI green and also allow AI to serve as a catalyst for the green energy transition as well.
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