There are several main ethical concerns regarding generative AI to keep in mind before using any software.
Training generative AI requires a significant amount of power. According to Business Insider, AI servers use anywhere from four to six times as much electricity as cloud servers. The projected demand for AI has led to the growth and construction of new data centers, mainly in rural areas of the United States. The first half of the year 2023 saw a 25% increase in data center construction over the last half of the year 2022, according to international commercial real estate company CBRE. While some companies have invested or are starting to invest in renewable energy sources to power their data centers, others are not and there are larger concerns that the amount of power used by these data centers could strain the electric grid and even threaten residential supply in the future.
Another major environmental concern with data centers is the amount of water they require to cool their servers. Because training AI requires so much electricity, it also generates a lot of heat. The temperature of the environment external to data centers also contributes to this issue. Most data centers use air-cooling systems, which are themselves energy-intensive, but when temperatures rise above 85 degrees, a liquid-cooling system is needed. This becomes a particular problem in states like Arizona, where Meta, Microsoft, and Google have all built or are planning to build data centers, and where summer temperatures can reach 115 degrees. As perhaps an omen of future water woes, in June 2023, the Governor of Arizona had to halt new constructions in Phoenix that relied on groundwater because proposed projects would outstrip the projected groundwater supply.
In light of environmental concerns about AI and data centers, members of Congress introduced a bill in February 2024 called the Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act of 2024 to determine and measure the impact the development of AI will have on the environment.
A.I. Frenzy Complicates Efforts to Keep Power-Hungry Data Sites Green by Patrick Sisson, New York Times, February 29, 2024
North America Data Center Trends H1 2023, CBRE, September 6, 2023
A.I. tools fueled a 34% spike in Microsoft’s water consumption, and one city with its data centers is concerned about the effect on residential supply by Matt O'Brien, Hannah Fingerhut, and the Associated Press, Fortune, September 9, 2023
AI and environmental challenges by Molly Flanagan, Environmental Innovation Initiative, University of Pennsylvania
Data centers are sprouting up as a result of the AI boom, minting fortunes, sucking up energy, and changing rural America by Daniel Geiger, Ellen Thomas, and Alistair Barr, October 13, 2023
Proposed Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act of 2024 text and press release
Arizona is running out of water. Big Tech data centers are partly to blame. by Alistair Barr, Business Insider, June 30, 2023