I can tell this question comes from an honest place of wanting to reduce the harm you cause through your individual interactions with AI software, which we know is quite resource-intensive. But first, take a step back with me for a moment and free yourself from the guilt of existence.
I would bet serious cash you’re an avid recycler as well? Someone who knows far too much about the different types of plastics and religiously sorts it all out like an upstanding citizen?
While this is a great practice in theory, your recyclable items may actually end up getting incinerated, buried in a landfill, or tossed into the ocean. This is because waste-management sites can’t process many types of plastic, and the deluge of garbage our society generates is just too overwhelming for our current systems to deal with. So, in the case of plastic recycling, our intentions as consumers are righteous, but the actions we take often amount to little more than a daily ritual absolving ourselves of the guilt of participating in a system that contributes to pollution.
It may feel good right now to personally opt out from using energy-intensive generative AI software when you can. Even so, you may not be able to avoid it forever. Your future job could be augmented by AI in some way that’s deemed critical to your performance, and you’ll have no choice but to let it suck up power and resources so you can get your work done. Honestly, the last decade’s shift to cloud storage has intensively transformed how we approach computing as a society, and I don’t know anyone who’s ethically conflicted about the number of photos clogging up their Apple iCloud storage. The reality is that personal, consumer decisions have less of an impact on the world than we would often like to think.
Even though I’m skeptical that abstention from AI tools by individual users will have a significant impact on the environment, this doesn’t mean the future is hopeless! If anything, I think you should be calling up your government representatives and voicing your perspective as someone who uses AI and is concerned with the technology’s impact on the long-term health of our planet. Assuming tech companies are going to continue building giant data centers—and they are—we should at least push for sustainable infrastructure, like onsite renewable energy generation and a reduction of water consumption by the computers’ cooling systems. The public deserves more transparency about how vast amounts of resources are consumed at these private sites that power our AI tools.
At your service,
Reece
Seeking advice on how to navigate the world of artificial intelligence tools? Submit any questions you’d like Reece Rogers to answer to mail@wired.com, and use the subject line The Prompt.