Green groups warn of AI dangers for energy and water use

The growth of artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to an exponential increase in energy and water usage and risks accelerating climate misinformation.

That is according to a coalition of green groups which is calling for greater transparency from technology companies and stringent regulations from international policymakers.

The Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition’s report on AI warns that “without immediate efforts to integrate climate and environmental justice into AI policy and incorporate input from frontline communities, AI will only exacerbate environmental injustice”.

It adds that there “two significant and immediate dangers” posed by AI.

The first is the “vast increase in energy and water consumption required by AI systems” and the second is the threat of AI “turbocharging disinformation”.

Michael Khoo, climate disinformation program director at Friends of the Earth, which is part of the coalition, said: “We seem to be hearing all the time that AI can save the planet, but we shouldn’t be believing this hype.”

He added: “It’s not like AI is ridding us of the internal combustion engine. People will be outraged to see how much more energy is being consumed by AI in the coming years, as well as how it will flood the zone with disinformation about climate change.

“There is no basis to believe AI’s presence will reduce energy use, all the evidence indicates it will massively increase energy use due to all the new data centers. […] We know there will be small gains in efficiency in data centers, but the simple math is that carbon emissions will go up.”

In terms of energy consumption, the report warns that each AI search requires 10 times the energy of traditional search engine queries.

It adds that energy use from data centres that power AI will double in the next two years, consuming as much energy as Japan.

These data centres and AI systems also use large amounts of water in operations and are often located in areas that already face water shortages, the report adds.

It adds: “If the AI industry improves data center energy efficiency by 10% but also doubling the number of data centres, it would lead to an 80% increase in global carbon emissions.”

The report adds that ““companies developing and using AI technologies do not adequately disclose details about their AI systems’ energy use.”

To tackle this increase in energy and water consumption, the report calls for greater transparency from technology companies including requirements to declare energy and water usage at data centres.

The coalition also warns that AI “will allow climate deniers to more easily, cheaply and rapidly develop persuasive false content and spread it across social media, targeted advertising and search engines”.

It adds: “Over the last decade, governments took too little action to regulate social media technology companies, even as societal harms became obvious.

“Legislators must not make this mistake again and should act quickly to implement regulation to require safety, transparency and accountability from AI companies and their products.”