Hey Reader, This week, my students and I have been talking a lot about the climate effects of AI. The footprint of AI usage has been a big issue for years – and it's become an even more common question because of viral headlines claiming that AI "drinks a bottle of water" to generate even a small amount of content. And it's about more than just quantifying resource usage. In our new post in Innovating with AI Magazine, author Amy Smith explores how grocery stores can use AI to optimize their resource usage – while also risking of accidental discrimination and unfairness. Amy's article is a fascinating look at how grocery stores are using AI across pretty much every aspect of their businesses, from sourcing to aisle design. Here's a sampling: “We’re actually working in the food supply chain with not just grocery stores, but actually farmers, as well. We integrate climate data such as topsoil conditions, access to water, and thousands of variations of seeds to figure out…the optimal use of the land and how you divide up cash crops versus nutrition crops.” To read more, click here for the full, free, shareable article from Innovating with AI Magazine. ••• For the second half of today's newsletter, I've got a sneak peek into what I talked about with students in our most recent live training session, which was all about celebrating the great things about AI while being honest about its negative impacts. By far the most popular headline of the last few months is this one: "AI drinks a bottle of water for every 300 prompts!" [sometimes we see variants claiming it's as little as 20 prompts] This is a very catchy headline 🙂. I did some digging, though, and it seems like the data is a mix of:
To support the contention that the original study is misleading, I shared Andy Masley's detailed post about comparing ChatGPT environmental impacts on to other common behaviors. His takeaways are pretty striking – particularly this comparison of water usage between ChatGPT, watching television, and eating a hamburger. (If you ever wondered why "stop eating beef" is one of the cornerstones of climate policy, this chart shows you why. Chicken and turkey are much less resource-intensive.) The thing is, we could debate until we are blue in the face about whether people "should" use AI or not. Ultimately, every action we take that uses resources is something that we could choose to modify or omit, reducing our environmental footprint. So every decision – whether eating or driving or using AI – has tradeoffs. I think the good news in all this is that the AI industry's incentives are generally well-aligned with the goal of reducing the environmental footprint of AI. For example:
In other words, AI companies and datacenter companies benefit from cheaper per-unit pricing, and consumers do as well. So consumers and companies are aligned here. Contrast that to the oil and gas industries, where companies are absolutely not in alignment with consumers. For example, because of the expenditures required to drill for oil, prices need to be around $60 a barrel to even make it economical to drill in the United States. That means that lower oil prices actually make production impossible – pretty much the opposite dynamic that happens with lower AI token prices. On top of that, there is crazy cartel behavior among foreign oil producers, so the big players are always manipulating prices in ways that are unrelated to consumer benefits. In other words, the incentives for Google and Meta's data centers are not the same as the incentives for notorious polluters, like the Big Oil companies. The Big Oil companies benefit when prices go up (harming consumers). Their public image is already pretty much as low as it can go, so there's minimal benefit to making themselves seem more "green." And they are working hard to lock consumers in to more oil purchases – for example, by lobbying against electric vehicles. By contrast, the companies building AI data centers benefit from higher efficiency and lower pricing, since there's a nearly limitless demand for more AI usage. No one needs to lock consumers in – we'd use AI even more if it were cheaper and more plentiful. And these companies care deeply about their reputations and operate in a highly competitive space where any of their rivals could steal market share at any moment. To sum it up – AI is not harmless by a long shot, but over time, it seems like the combination of greater efficiency and cleaner power solutions will make it a clear win when you consider the costs against the benefits. ••• 📚 Here's what else I'm reading this week:
••• 🙋♀️ Want to be part of our next survey? Take 5 minutes to tell us your take on the latest AI news:
Survey: How do Real Estate Agents Use AI?
We'll be sharing all the results with everyone who participates! Until next time, – Rob |
We help entrepreneurs and executives harness the power of AI.
Hey Reader, Love 'em or hate 'em, AI search tools are rapidly becoming the most efficient way to find answers online. That's one takeaway from our first proprietary survey of Innovating with AI readers – shared today in our latest post in Innovating with AI Magazine (free for everyone). See the full article and data In addition to the new data, intrepid IWAI reporter Tim Keary has interviewed thought leader Nick Reese (the first Director of Emerging Technology Policy at the US Department of...
Hey Reader, It's hard to see past the chaos in the White House, but I want to share something with you that I told my team a few months ago: When history tells the story of the 2020s, AI will be the main character, and Donald Trump will be a footnote. This week it seems likely that Trump will send his country and several others into a recession. But despite his temporary power and his fame/infamy, he's a small man in a big decade. Our grandkids will be reading history books like this: "In the...
Hey Reader, It's a big week in energy, growth and center-left thinking because of the release of the new book Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. If you don't know them, they're two of the preeminent columnists and podcasters at The New York Times and The Atlantic. One of the central ideas of the book is that cheap, clean energy is the linchpin of our future growth and success as a society. This is especially true in the realm of AI. Think about it – if we unlocked more cheap, clean...