Every time you use ChatGPT, half a litre of water is wasted.

Professor Kate Crawford urged such big tech companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Google to take action regarding a situation that may threaten even the functioning world: the power consumption that artificial intelligence could bring. Currently terrifying in generative AI terms, this consumes energy comparable to that of an entire small-size country and predicted to be as much as Japan’s size within just one year.

For comparison, data searches powered by generative AI consume more energy-10 times that of mainstream web searches. Moreover, startlingly, the energy requirements for the entire tech sector have tripled within only a two-year span. For her, AI systems would already be transforming the physical environment in a deep and frequently unrecognized manner. Therefore, she emphasizes an urgent need for decarbonization by the middle of the century to get these impacts.

Freshwater needs for cooling purposes are enormous in AI data centers. Unfortunately, much of this water ends up evaporating and creates even more environmental problems. Instead of just pursuing the ever-increasing advancements in AI, Crawford says the highest priority for the technology sector should be sustainability. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, has admitted that achieving an energy breakthrough is critical to the future of artificial intelligence, a realization that has motivated him to put more resources into nuclear fusion as a potential solution. However, Crawford sees nuclear power as a short-term fix of an overall more complex, bigger problem needing a more sweeping approach.

She thinks that researchers should completely change their approach on how they go about creating AI systems by adopting sustainability first. This should include renewable-source priorities in recycled water systems to reduce ecologic footprints involving these technologies. Ascribing importance to generative AI models’ sustainability would have to be the same as organs attached to their functionality or marketing schemes in major tech companies. Australia has an important part to play in this transformation: its policy decisions and regulations will form the basis of global standards.

According to Crawford’s comments, the recent piece of work done by the Senate select committee proved to be quite a good sample of the arguments which called for technologies to be more transparent and sustainable. This was recommendation number 12 of that report, which called for the federal government to adopt a more coordinated and holistic strategy in managing the proliferation of AI infrastructure in the country. This ensures that such growth is sustainable and also serves the interests of the Australian citizenry and its national interests.

Crawford envisions a future where AI contributes to addressing pressing climate issues rather than worsening them. Another upbeat testimony to the potential of artificial intelligence in this regard comes from Faith Taylor, sustainability leader at Kyndryl, the world’s largest IT services provider. In her view, AI will help expedite the transition to renewable fuel sources by forecasting the weather, assessing supply chain efficiency, and developing energy-efficient processes that become increasingly efficient over time with a slew of innovations in low-energy AI models.

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