The Carbon Emissions of Writing and Illustrating Are Lower for AI than for Humans
Abstract
AI systems emit significantly less greenhouse gases than humans when performing similar tasks, such as text writing and image creation, but do not entirely replace human labor.
As AI systems proliferate, their greenhouse gas emissions are an increasingly important concern for human societies. We analyze the emissions of several AI systems (ChatGPT, BLOOM, DALL-E2, Midjourney) relative to those of humans completing the same tasks. We find that an AI writing a page of text emits 130 to 1500 times less CO2e than a human doing so. Similarly, an AI creating an image emits 310 to 2900 times less. Emissions analysis do not account for social impacts such as professional displacement, legality, and rebound effects. In addition, AI is not a substitute for all human tasks. Nevertheless, at present, the use of AI holds the potential to carry out several major activities at much lower emission levels than can humans.
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An interesting side-effect and aspect to all of this is that we may start taking the actual expenses of human life toward being able to be creative more seriously in trying to account for the cost of what we're all focused on and determine the best use of resources. Already, AI is much more efficient at protein folding than anything before, and I can envision it helping us determine which invasive plants to turn into fuel, fertilizer, and water in the desertified areas using things like optimized biochar reactors, giving jobs to many disadvantaged workers in Third World countries, and providing more farmland.
I hope to see fusion energy make the energy requirements seem like a drop in the bucket and incredibly safe. But even still, we should focus AI on environmental efforts that reduce its impact. It can provide novel solutions from incredibly expansive engineering and materials science data in the future, like JARVIS.
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