Will AI Be Good or Bad for the Climate? Here's What the Latest Evidence on Energy Use Suggests

Will AI be good or bad for the climate? Here's what the latest evidence on energy use suggests

Is AI a climate change villain whose insatiable hunger for electricity will roast the planet? Or will it help predict where the next climate disaster will strike and what to do about it?

How much energy does AI use?

If an alien landed on Earth and tried to figure out what a data center was, E.T. might arrive at the concept of a big box where zillions of gallons of gasoline gets burned so humans can look at screens.

Will AI be good or bad for the climate? Here’s what the latest evidence on energy use suggests

Is AI a climate change villain, whose insatiable hunger for electricity will roast the planet? Or will it help predict where the next climate disaster will strike and what to do about it? In order to weigh these questions up, a good starting point is with AI’s energy consumption. The 2015 Paris agreement was a deal among almost 200 countries to keep “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” an…