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Image source: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has become an issue in urgent international efforts to combat climate change. As artificial intelligence plays an ever-increasing role in our lives, it will require massive amounts of computing power and data storage.
Therefore, the carbon footprint of AI is expected to expand due to its high energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with hardware production.
However, the truth is more nuanced, as artificial intelligence can also become a problem solver and make a significant contribution to combating climate change.
For example, artificial intelligence can help more accurately predict extreme weather events such as hurricanes, or predict the rate at which the world’s polar ice and glaciers are melting. It can also help us better manage our energy infrastructure, such as the electrical grid.
Since 2012, the largest artificial intelligence training processes have been consuming more and more computing power. In fact, this rate doubles every 3.4 months on average.
Data centers and transmission networks account for more than 1% of global energy use and more than 0.6% of global carbon emissions. A single query to ChatGPT, OpenAI’s advanced chatbot, can generate more carbon than a regular Google search.
Using artificial intelligence for good
Despite the potential negative impacts, there are reasons to be optimistic. One way artificial intelligence can help is by improving our understanding of the basic science of climate change.
Artificial intelligence can contribute to this in a number of ways, one of which may be through improved climate models. These are computer-based simulations designed to simulate how Earth’s climate operates and how Earth’s climate responds, or may in the future, respond to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.
Artificial intelligence techniques such as machine learning can be used to simulate elements of climate patterns that are currently difficult to replicate, such as how raindrops or clouds form.
In this way, AI can not only improve climate model predictions (used to guide policy decisions) but also reduce the computing power required for such tasks. This, in turn, could help reduce the carbon footprint of running these climate models on supercomputers.
In a recent TED talk, Sims Witherspoon, head of climate and sustainability at Google DeepMind, said artificial intelligence can help us optimize and manage existing systems and infrastructure, such as power grids. The grid must be actively managed to maintain a stable balance between supply and demand.
A shift away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy is critical to achieving net zero targets. However, while fossil fuel power plants are relatively reliable, wind and solar are unpredictable due to weather. This is where artificial intelligence may step in.
DeepMind’s Witherspoon team trained a neural network (an artificial intelligence system inspired by the human brain) based on data from historical weather patterns and wind turbine power generation information. The resulting technology improves performance by 20% over existing wind power forecasting systems. Operators can use this to better plan for supply drops and fill the gap with energy from other renewable sources.
the right policy
While AI brings tangible benefits, it will also require the right government policies if it is to realize its potential. The interplay between the benefits of artificial intelligence and its environmental costs is extremely complex. To help ensure that AI has a positive net impact, all parties involved, including governments and technology companies developing AI systems, need to be transparent about their environmental costs.
Only through transparency and data sharing can we make informed strategic choices about the use of artificial intelligence to enhance positive impacts and find solutions that reduce the technology’s harmful impact on the environment.
As it stands, artificial intelligence is not a particularly green technology and is expensive to develop. However, climate change is the biggest challenge we face, and if we can find solutions that offset its shortcomings, artificial intelligence could become a valuable ally.
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