Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability – A Dichotomy or Boon?

Habitat changes caused by living beings make platonic shifts in climatic behavior and thereby the environment. The change in climatic conditions reflects a change in habitats by the most intelligent species, the Humans. And we humans have done so to take care of our scale caused by increasing population. This shift in our lifestyle put huge pressure on the current habitat and the response to which is what we are seeing now, the change in climatic conditions. Colder places becoming warmer, warmer places becoming colder, and glaciers are melting down causing floods. Floods wash off the flora, new species emerge adapting to this new habitat, and biodiversity balance is altered and this cycle continues causing a spiral and exponential impact.

Understanding Environmental Triggers

What is that activity which is causing the maximum imbalance. First, comes food production whether it is agriculture or animal husbandry both of which are essential every day for the growing population. The second cause is Fossil Fuel Consumptions. We have used Technology to help us take care of demands caused by the scale, we will leverage technology solve climatic problems.

The AI Dichotomy

But before that lets understand the Dichotomy.AI Can help in augmenting our sustainability initiatives but AI also can derail the Progress thus far. Is it a dichotomy? To start with it appears to be but let us dig deeper to understand the full picture.

Training LLM model can emit as much as 78000 pounds of CO2 which is equivalent to five cars for a lifetime. GPT 3 is set to have generated 552 metric Tons of CO2 during training equivalent to the annual emission of 120 cars. There could be one hundred models fine-tuned daily. Research says that global data centers to run AI systems might use 1% of the world's electricity and contribute to 0.3% of global CO2 emissions. While these are the significant impact items.

Energy Payback Period

History has shown that energy consumption and the cost of technology come down dramatically over a period due to competition, advancements in technology, and renewal of energy usage. Few examples CRT monitors consumed 150 watts of power whereas LCD monitors reduced that to 40 Watts and LED monitors to 20 Watts. House appliances reduced their energy consumption by 70% on average over a period. Data centers wasted an equal amount of energy they used for producing for cooling, but current data centers reduced this wastage by leveraging renewals. Processors consuming energy is continuously on a decreasing trend. We will see the same happening for energy consumption in AI say in 2 to 3 years. We call this The Energy payback period which is the period in which the energy consumption decreases, wastage decreases, and the benefits surpass- below is a high-level view of that.

The typical break-even period has improved significantly over the years. This assures us that CO2 emissions due to AI will become negligible sooner and faster. With that AI can truly advance our sustainability initiatives faster than without. So, AI can be a savior if used thoughtfully and under high governance.

Sustainability-Augmentation by AI

• Agriculture – AI can predict accurate weather and soil conditions, regulate auto pest controls, and formulate crop cycles for efficient production.
• Demand Forecast – AI can predict the demands and eliminate unnecessary production and wastage.
• Energy Consumptions - Early detection of potential energy drainers can help leakages and maintain efficiency, predict carbon hotspots in business processes, and help factories and organizations establish controls to achieve and measure their green score commitments.
• Supply chain - The biggest source of energy traffic is supplying chain. AI can help in establishing faster routes and efficient planning by detecting the carbon hotspots and monitoring non compliances in the commitments.
• Smarter cities and Disaster recovery monitoring- Through sharp predictions and detection controls from AI can help in taking the right measures and minimizing the impact on the environment like Forest fires, Flooding, and factory accidents.
• Waste Reduction and Recycling-Smart Waste Management AI can optimize waste collection routes and schedules, reducing fuel consumption and emissions. It can also help in sorting and recycling by using image recognition to separate diverse types of materials, increasing recycling rates.
• Food Waste Reduction: AI tools can help restaurants, supermarkets, and households monitor food inventory and predict spoilage, reducing food waste. AI solutions have been shown to cut food waste by up to 50% in commercial kitchens.
• Circular Economy: AI can enable businesses to design products with circular economy principles in mind, such as modular designs that make it easier to repair, reuse, and recycle products. AI algorithms can also track product lifecycles and suggest refurbishment or repurposing strategies.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence is our answer to the most challenging question of how to reverse the damage and how to stop any more damage to our planet Earth and beyond. Let us leverage the full potential of AI and let each of us be the champion for the responsible usage of AI in our pledge toward sustainable commitments and practices.