Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds potential to help understand and mitigate climate impact, by improving efficiency in various sectors such as aviation and weather forecasting, as reported by Tech news briefing. AI has been employed by companies like Google and American Airlines to mitigate global warming by creating fewer vapor trails. However, AI’s own climate impact, in terms of energy use and water consumption, is significant. For instance, machine learning model Bloom has a high carbon footprint, and was found to double total emissions due to factors beyond energy use, such as manufacturing involved in deep machine learning. The model also consumed enough energy to power an average American home for over four decades. In terms of water consumption, data centres typically use a large amount to cool themselves, and research has shown that Google’s large language model, Lambda, used around a million liters of water for training alone. This has prompted calls for the implementation of measures to limit AI’s climate impact, such as reducing AI integration and considering the location for housing AI models.
