Implicit Costs of AI: Environmental Impact
Artificial intelligence is often addressed as the powerhouse of cutting-edge features and a catalyst in designing the answers to seemingly unsolvable issues. It would be a slight exaggeration to call AI’s contributions a lifesaver, but it is reckless to neglect its crucial impact on the world’s radical transformation. Inter alia the artificial intelligence is showing a prominent potential in advancing all walks of life, and ecology is one of them. AI is foretold to provide services of complex monitoring of environmental and climate fluctuations, and capture populational indicators.
However, alas, every coin has two sides, and every virtue could trigger even fiercer drawbacks. Significantly, artificial intelligence is not an exclusion as well, and whilst the common heated debate over AI is heeding the ethical and moral concerns, the issue of the technology endangering the environment is imprudently neglected. This article is dedicated to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on the artificial intelligence’s impact on the processes of nature with a due impartiality.
Vast Energy Consumption as The Foremost Accelerant
There is no secret that artificial intelligence is a resource-hungry technology due to the overwhelmingly exorbitant amounts of energy required to ensure the sustainable running of supercomputers. The ones, undoubtedly, are needed to store and process the enormous volume of content for machinery learning. According to the research carried out by scholars at the University of Massachusetts, the training of a common AI system can emit over 626,000 pounds (!) of carbon dioxide equivalent, whiсh is nearly comparable to the life cycles of 5 cars.
Indeed, the global concern regarding redundant energy consumption is not confined to the AI data centres, but it would be fundamentally wrong to ignore their indispensable contribution for the appalling climate alterations. And apparently, the ball began to roll. To be more specific, the issue began so remarkably that AI engineers were forced to tackle the drawbacks and rethink of the sources powering dara farms.
First Steps to Diminishing AI’s carbon footprint
The global tech community had indeed adjusted the perception of environmentally-friendly features implemented into AI. A great case in point of the progress combined with consciousness is Iceland, which is well-known for its massive integration of clean energy, using hydroelectric and geothermal resources as the sustainable alternatives to traditional and harmful methods of generating electricity. Recently Iceland became a popular investment subject due to a vast amount of data centres established. The crucial point of such a resonance — natural cooling of supercomputers, which does not require enormous costs and hence diminished the carbon footprint of a certain data-hub. Win-win situation.
Another ecological novelty large data companies are turning to in this day and age is a replacement of lithium batteries, production of which is overwhelmingly hazardous, with physical batteries. The concrete contraptions capacitate gravitational energy which can be later transformed into the pure electricity. The early prototype of the physical battery, which is settled in Switzerland, is enough to power two thousand homes. These batteries could also become an essential element of every future environmentally friendly data-centre.
What Can AI Learn From Crypto?
Notably, a parallel can be drawn between artificial intelligence and Blockchain realms, regarding their common need for powerful yet sustainable data centres, while crypto industry is suffering from the more uncontrolled threat — mining. The major crypto companies are on their way to implement features in order to reduce their carbon footprint, however the miners do not usually tend to follow nature’s interests while setting up the huge farms, resulting in poisonous compounds emitting at greater rates. The crypto businesses couldn’t stand by, and they are actively defending the environmentally-friendly mining and conscious consumption of the energy.
As stated by WhiteBIT crypto exchange,
“In China, most of the BTC is mined in coal plants, which increases the overall carbon level. The carbon footprint of mining is undeniably harmful to the environment, which has been repeatedly discussed by representatives of leading countries and influential entrepreneurs.”
It has been not long ago since the better part of crypto entities chose the vector of sustainable energy usage and are mostly appealing to renewable sources. For instance, the so-called solar mining is exceedingly popular in African and Asian countries, which are located in middle latitudes. Sunny climate makes solar mining the ideal option to reduce costs and decrease the carbon footprint.
The spoiling of nature is also prevented by hydromining and wind mining, which accordingly uses water and air as renewable resources for sustainable energy emission. These methods are massively adopted in Northern Europe, Japan and Asia.
In fact, the mitigation of the crypto sphere’s carbon footprint should be a sort of guiding principle for the artificial intelligence specialists, considering the simplicity and efficiency of the methods crypto businesses and community use to support the sustainability of the industry.
AI Turning Tides of Environmental scrutiny
Despite the fact that the machine learning demands an overwhelming amounts of energy, increasing the risks of ecological disaster to occur, there are people who are dedicated to use the technology for good and take the environmental condition several stages better.
For instance, AI unlocks the almost countless abilities for environmental researching, namely automated monitoring for assisting conservation of marine ecosystems. What is more, the advanced toolkits of automated forest system modelling and operating this data is now possible — thanks to artificial intelligence.
The realm is making its first steps, but it would be reckless to question the imminence of new possibilities and advancements coined with the help of AI technologies.
Nutshell: Do AI-Supported Virtues Outweigh Technology’s Harm?
Ultimately, I do consider artificial intelligence a clear sign of the world’s radical transformation which indicates its enormous functionality and prominent potential. However, in this day and age, when the usage of AI endangers natural consistency, it is rather hypocritical to claim artificial intelligence to be a lifesaver. The risks caused by artificial intelligence must not be nivelated but eliminated, so that the technological progress finally complied with the favourable environmental condition.
