I mean, there are good uses as well. Just as an example:
Providing helpful information: People are looking for information to reduce their environmental footprint. Fuel-efficient routing in Google Maps uses AI to suggest routes that have fewer hills, less traffic, and constant speeds with the same or similar ETA. Since launching in October 2021, fuel-efficient routing is estimated to have helped prevent more than 2.4 million metric tons of CO2e emissions — the equivalent of taking approximately 500,000 fuel-based cars off the road for a year.
Predicting climate-related events: Floods are the most common natural disaster, causing thousands of fatalities and disrupting the lives of millions every year. Since 2018, Google Research has been working on our flood forecasting initiative, which uses advanced AI and geospatial analysis to provide real-time flooding information so communities and individuals can prepare for and respond to riverine floods. Our Flood Hub platform is available to more than 80 countries, providing forecasts up to seven days in advance for 460 million people.
Optimizing climate action: Contrails — the thin, white lines you sometimes see behind airplanes — have a surprisingly large impact on our climate. The 2022 IPCC report noted that contrail clouds account for roughly 35% of aviation’s global warming impact — which is over half the impact of the world’s jet fuel. Google Research teamed up with American Airlines and Breakthrough Energy to bring together huge amounts of data — like satellite imagery, weather and flight path data — and used AI to develop contrail forecast maps to test if pilots can choose routes that avoid creating contrails. After these test flights, we found that the pilots reduced contrails by 54%.
Even something like household phantom power currently uses more energy than AI at data centers.
I’m all for putting pressure on corporate climate impact and finally putting to rest the propaganda of personal responsibility dreamt up by lobbyists, but I don’t know that ‘AI’ is the right Boogeyman here.
If the conditions are suitable, emissions of soot and water vapour can trigger the formation of contrails (Kärcher 2018), which can spread to form extensive contrail-cirrus cloud coverage. Such cloud coverage is estimated to have a combined ERF that is about 57% of the current net ERF of global aviation (Lee et al. 2021), although a comparison of cirrus cloud observations under pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic conditions suggest that this forcing could be smaller (Digby et al. 2021). Additional effects from aviation from aerosol-cloud interactions on high-level ice clouds through soot (Chen and Gettelman 2013; Zhou and Penner 2014; Penner et al. 2018), and lower-level warm clouds through sulphur (Righi et al. 2013; Kapadia et al. 2016) are highly uncertain, with no best estimates available (Lee et al. 2021).
The 2 papers listed which quantify the effect:
Lee, D.S. et al., 2021: The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018. Atmos. Environ. , 244, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2020.117834. Link to paper
Digby, R.A.R., N.P. Gillett, A.H. Monahan, and J.N.S. Cole, 2021: An Observational Constraint on Aviation-Induced Cirrus From the COVID-19-Induced Flight Disruption. Geophys. Res. Lett. , 48(20) , e2021GL095882-e2021GL095882, doi:10.1029/2021GL095882. Link to paper
I mean, there are good uses as well. Just as an example:
https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/report-ai-sustainability-google-cop28/
Even something like household phantom power currently uses more energy than AI at data centers.
I’m all for putting pressure on corporate climate impact and finally putting to rest the propaganda of personal responsibility dreamt up by lobbyists, but I don’t know that ‘AI’ is the right Boogeyman here.
AI isn’t the boogeyman, the corpos using it for dumb shit is.
Exactly: replace AI with “crypto mining” or any other waste of processing power in this paragraph and it is just as relevant…
How would contrails cause global warming? They’re just condensation.
From the Report, Chapter 10.5.2:
The 2 papers listed which quantify the effect: