Environmental Considerations

Environmental Considerations

Generative AI is a powerful tool, but it comes with significant environmental costs. It is important to be mindful of the environmental impact of Generative AI in terms of:

• Energy Use: Generating AI prompts and training large models require enormous amounts of electricity. Training a single large AI model can emit as much CO₂ as five cars over their lifetimes.
• Water Consumption: Data centres rely heavily on water for cooling processors. For instance, Microsoft used 22 billion litres of water in 2022, largely for AI-related work.
• Carbon Footprint: AI workloads in data centres contribute to about 0.3% of global CO₂ emissions. Training models like GPT-3 can produce emissions equivalent to driving 123 cars for a year.
• Educational Responsibility: While AI enhances education, its use should be intentional. Opt for tools that offer clear benefits and prioritise energy-efficient or sustainably powered services.