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Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

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AI Already had a Terrible Carbon Footprint. Now it’s way Worse

Irina Raicu, director of the Internet Ethics Program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, published by San Francisco Chronicle.

The artificial intelligence revolution is heating up. So is the climate. Unfortunately, AI plays a role in climate change.

Recently, a research team found that ChatGPT uses the equivalent of a 500-milliliter bottle of water for each “conversation” of 20-50 prompts and replies.

Even discussions specifically devoted to ethical concerns related to AI (highlighting issues like bias, privacy violations, indiscriminate scraping to build training data sets, etc.) often fail to include environmental issues. When the White House announced last month that seven of the key companies developing AI had agreed to a list of voluntary commitments focused on protecting Americans’ “rights and safety,” the announcement said nothing about sustainability.

Irina Raicu, director of the Internet Ethics Program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, published by San Francisco Chronicle.

Ethics
media, internet, technology, ai, ITEC, ESG, ESG-ENV