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Eli Dussault, mar 26
Since around November of 2022 Generative AI like ChatGPT have started getting extremely popular. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that creates new content—including text, images, video, audio, and computer code—in response to user prompts. In December 2022, ChatGPT was launched, in the first 5 days of release there were already about 1 million users. At the end of that month, there were already around 57 million users. Today, each week there are 900 million users.
People can use AI for pretty much anything to help them with their work or daily tasks, but what most people don’t understand is its impact on the environment. A study from Google and the University of California at Berkeley estimated that the training process alone for ChatGPT 3.0 used 1,287 megawatt hours of electricity. That is enough to power 120 average-sized U.S. homes for a year. This also emitted about 552 tons of carbon dioxide. In a year, it would take 120 gas-powered cars to emit that much carbon dioxide.
Data Centers, which are physical facilities that house the servers and storage for the AI companies, produce electronic waste that contains hazardous materials like mercury and lead. Data Centers use 6 times more water to cool servers and generate electricity than the country of Denmark itself, a country of 6 million people. Many Data Centers use cooling towers. A cooling tower uses water to absorb the heat created by the servers. A lot of the time, Data Centers will get electricity from a power plant. A power plant uses steam to generate electricity.
What can people do? Stop using AI as much. Research what impacts things have before jumping straight to them. Click this link to learn more about the Impacts of AI. Be mindful of what tech and AI are doing to the environment. AI and its impacts are not going away, but everyone can make a difference by learning about what impacts these things have.
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