While bitcoin’s effect on the environment has been discussed at length over the last two years, the latest trend of artificial intelligence (AI) software is now being criticized for its carbon footprint. According to several headlines and academic papers this year, AI consumes significant electricity and leverages copious amounts of water to cool data centers.
Reports Insist AI and Chatgpt Consumes a Ton of Electricity and Water
In recent times, environmentalists have aimed their targets at various technologies, and during the last 24 months, a great deal of focus has been directed at bitcoin mining. Now, the insatiable drive to reduce carbon footprints is aimed at the artificial intelligence (AI) trend that has taken the world by storm. There’s no doubt that AI has been extremely popular in 2023, with Openai’s Chatgpt program and others releasing innovative new software. However, several articles and scholarly papers claim that AI is consuming a massive amount of energy and has a significant carbon footprint.
According to a report published by Bloomberg, “AI uses more energy than other forms of computing.” The article employs a tactic used by members of the media to make it seem like machines are taking away energy from humans. “Training a single [AI] model can gobble up more electricity than 100 U.S. homes use in an entire year,” insist Bloomberg authors Josh Saul and Dina Bass. The report further notes that while researchers have estimated a total on how much energy creating an AI model takes, there is no overall estimate for the total amount of power the technology uses.
Meanwhile, an academic paper published by students from the University of Colorado Riverside and the University of Texas Arlington claims that not only does Chatgpt use a lot of electricity, but it also leverages water to cool down data centers. The paper cites that the technology giant Microsoft uses so much water to cool its United States AI facilities that it could be used for “370 BMW cars or 320 Tesla electric vehicles.” The paper further claims that training the GPT-3 model consumed 185,000 gallons of water.
Mark Labbe, an author at techtarget.com, insists that “data centers and large AI models use massive amounts of energy and are harmful to the environment.” Another article from numenta.com also insists that AI is “harming” the planet, and the author claims the trend could accelerate the climate crisis if not addressed. Not everyone agrees…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Bitcoin News…
