As the use of generative artificial intelligence ramps up, experts are raising the alarm about what this means for the environment and governments’ commitments to cut planet-heating emissions to prevent runaway global warming.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Reuters last week that President Donald Trump’s administration expected most of the country’s coal-fired power plants to delay retirement to help deliver the vast amount of electricity needed to fuel AI.
Big tech companies like Google, Meta and Microsoft have made sustainability pledges, but environmental experts say the sector is not doing enough to reduce its energy and water usage, rising emissions or the potential flood of e-waste.
Benedetta Brevini, visiting professor at NYU and associate professor at the University of Sydney, who specialises in the political economy of communications and tech, says these “digital lords” need to come clean about the environmental impact of generative AI and the data centres needed to power the technology, particularly in Europe.
Europe could see a record level of new data centres this year, according to investment and real estate group CBRE, as companies expand AI and cloud computing activities.
Brevini, who published the book “Is AI Good for the Planet?” in 2021, says the public also needs to question the utility of some AI applications. She spoke to Context during a recent visit to Brussels.
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We have to choose the technologies we need, (such as) to further medicine, make better diagnoses. There are some technologies that we can decide if, in times of a climate crisis, we need them or not.
Benedetta Brevini, associate professor, University of Sydney
We see more data centres being built, often in places where natural resources are scarce. How big is the risk that this tech boom fuels inequalities?
I really contest this rootless type of development that does not consider the trade-offs. There are communities, very often in areas where you have constant droughts and constant floods, that really cannot cope with hosting data centres.
