- “What scares me is the energy consumption if you’re using ChatGPT,” SiriusPower CTO Caroline Hargrove said on a CNBC moderated panel.
- An IEA report states that by 2026, the AI industry will consume at least 10 times the electricity demand in 2023.
- “It’s important to be a responsible consumer,” said Mary D. Wysocki, Cisco’s chief sustainability officer. [AI] Where we know where the benefit can be added and not just use it because it’s potentially fun.”
Ceres Power’s chief technology officer has warned that as artificial intelligence tools become more widely used for efficiency, there is a risk that this could lead to higher energy consumption as well.
“What scares me is the energy consumption if you’re using ChatGPT. [for simple queries]Caroline Hargrove said during an “IOT: Powering the Digital Economy” panel on the new energy landscape.
Hargrove is the CTO of Ceres Power, a developer of clean energy technologies, including electrolyzers for green hydrogen.
An International Energy Agency report published in January highlighted that on average a typical Google search uses 0.3 watt-hours of electricity compared to 2.9 watt-hours for a ChatGPT application.
The report suggested that when the technology was added to the 9 billion searches per day, it would require about 10 terawatt-hours of additional electricity a year.
More broadly, the IEA report states that by 2026, “rapid growth in the AI industry is expected to consume at least ten times as much. [electricity] demand in 2023.”
If that consumption isn’t managed properly, “there can be a perverse effect that we use so much energy,” Hargrove said.
“So as much as I’m a big fan of using data to actually improve everything, we should be using it to reduce our consumption, but the perverse effect can be when you have a new toy. Be and people will follow him. [such] A rate,” he said.
‘Responsible Users’ of AI
Mary D. Wysocki, chief sustainability officer at technology company Cisco, made a similar point, saying, “It’s important to be a responsible consumer. [AI] Where we know where the benefit can be added and not just use it because it’s potentially fun.”
Meanwhile, Bertrand Picard, founder and chairman of environmental non-profit organization Solar Impulse Foundation, said AI is “a great way to reduce energy consumption” if managed well.
Piccard cited the example of smart electricity grids using technology that would “integrate intermittent renewable energy … with storage, with distribution, with consumption which means almost no energy waste. It won’t happen.”
“So [these are] Things that give me hope,” he said.
A report by the Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition, published in March, considers the risks that AI could pose during the climate crisis, including its increased energy demand.
Based on its findings, the coalition recommended that regulators ensure that technology companies are transparent in reporting the energy and emissions used by their AI models.
CAAD also said that governments should enforce these transparency rules with “clear, strong penalties” if companies fail to comply.