Unraveling the Hidden Environmental Impacts of AI Solutions for Environment

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ligozat, Anne-Laure, Lefèvre, Julien, Bugeau, Aurélie, Combaz, Jacques
Format: Preprint
Published: 2021
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author Ligozat, Anne-Laure
Lefèvre, Julien
Bugeau, Aurélie
Combaz, Jacques
author_facet Ligozat, Anne-Laure
Lefèvre, Julien
Bugeau, Aurélie
Combaz, Jacques
contents In the past ten years, artificial intelligence has encountered such dramatic progress that it is now seen as a tool of choice to solve environmental issues and in the first place greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). At the same time the deep learning community began to realize that training models with more and more parameters requires a lot of energy and as a consequence GHG emissions. To our knowledge, questioning the complete net environmental impacts of AI solutions for the environment (AI for Green), and not only GHG, has never been addressed directly. In this article, we propose to study the possible negative impacts of AI for Green. First, we review the different types of AI impacts, then we present the different methodologies used to assess those impacts, and show how to apply life cycle assessment to AI services. Finally, we discuss how to assess the environmental usefulness of a general AI service, and point out the limitations of existing work in AI for Green.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2110_11822
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Unraveling the Hidden Environmental Impacts of AI Solutions for Environment
Ligozat, Anne-Laure
Lefèvre, Julien
Bugeau, Aurélie
Combaz, Jacques
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
In the past ten years, artificial intelligence has encountered such dramatic progress that it is now seen as a tool of choice to solve environmental issues and in the first place greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). At the same time the deep learning community began to realize that training models with more and more parameters requires a lot of energy and as a consequence GHG emissions. To our knowledge, questioning the complete net environmental impacts of AI solutions for the environment (AI for Green), and not only GHG, has never been addressed directly. In this article, we propose to study the possible negative impacts of AI for Green. First, we review the different types of AI impacts, then we present the different methodologies used to assess those impacts, and show how to apply life cycle assessment to AI services. Finally, we discuss how to assess the environmental usefulness of a general AI service, and point out the limitations of existing work in AI for Green.
title Unraveling the Hidden Environmental Impacts of AI Solutions for Environment
topic Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.11822