Why Google’s CSO Thinks AI Can Combat Climate Change | WSJ Tech News Briefing

Summary

In this interview at COP28, Google’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Kate Brandt, discusses how AI can play a crucial role in combating climate change. She highlights AI’s potential to reduce global emissions by 10% by 2030 through improvements in information sharing, optimization, and prediction. Practical examples include Google Maps offering eco-friendly routes and AI in aviation to reduce emissions from contrails. However, with AI’s increasing energy consumption, there are concerns about its environmental impact. Google addresses these challenges by focusing on energy-efficient hardware and responsible AI development to ensure sustainability.

Takeaways

• 😀 AI can play a significant role in addressing climate change, with the potential to reduce global emissions by 10% by 2030, according to a report by Google and Boston Consulting Group.
• 🌍 The global stock take at COP28 revealed that current efforts are falling short of achieving a 43% reduction in emissions by 2030, making AI's contribution even more critical.
• 💡 Three major opportunity areas for AI in sustainability are: information, optimization, and prediction.
• 🛣️ One practical example of AI in sustainability is Google Maps' eco-friendly routing, which uses AI to suggest the most fuel-efficient routes based on traffic and terrain.
• ✈️ AI can also optimize aviation emissions, as demonstrated by Google’s partnership with American Airlines, using AI to minimize contrail formation and reduce emissions.
• ⚡ AI’s energy consumption is a concern, especially with models like GPT-3 consuming the equivalent energy of 123 gas-powered cars in one year during training.
• 🔋 To ensure AI helps, not harms, the environment, it's crucial to focus on responsible development, including improving data center efficiency and designing energy-efficient hardware.
• 🖥️ Google has been developing its own machine learning hardware, such as the TPU V4 chip, which is one of the most efficient chips for machine learning tasks.
• 🔬 There is a need for more research on the long-term environmental impact of AI, especially as its deployment continues to grow globally.
• 🌱 Overall, while AI has a huge potential to supercharge climate solutions, it must be developed and implemented with sustainability at its core to avoid exacerbating the problem.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the conversation between Kate Brandt and Stacy Mitry?

The conversation focuses on the role of AI in addressing climate change, discussing how AI can help reduce emissions and optimize sustainability efforts across various sectors.

How does AI help in reducing global emissions by 2030, according to the report by Google and BCG?

AI can enable existing technology and solutions to reduce global emissions by up to 10% by 2030, as identified in the report by Google and BCG.

What are the three major opportunity areas for AI in combating climate change?

The three major opportunity areas for AI in combating climate change are information, optimization, and prediction.

Can you provide an example of AI's role in providing information to reduce carbon footprints?

One example is eco-friendly routing in Google Maps, where AI helps users choose the most fuel-efficient route based on factors like road gradient and traffic conditions.

How does AI contribute to optimization in the aviation industry?

AI helps optimize aviation emissions by analyzing satellite imagery to predict contrail formation and providing pilots with recommendations to adjust their altitude to avoid them.

What challenge does AI face in terms of energy consumption, especially in training models like ChatGPT?

AI, particularly in training models like ChatGPT, consumes significant amounts of energy, with some reports suggesting that training one model can require as much energy as running 123 gas-powered cars for an entire year.

What is the current environmental impact of global data centers in terms of emissions?

Global data centers represent about 0.1% to 0.2% of global emissions, with around 25% of the work in these centers being related to machine learning.

What steps are being taken to ensure that AI development does not increase emissions?

Efforts include responsible AI development practices, optimizing the energy efficiency of data centers, and using hardware like Google's TPUs, which are designed for energy efficiency in machine learning tasks.

What role does Google's TPU V4 chip play in reducing AI's environmental impact?

Google's TPU V4 chip is one of the most efficient machine learning chips available, designed to reduce the energy consumption of AI training processes.

What is the broader goal that AI aims to achieve in the fight against climate change?

AI aims to supercharge climate solutions by improving efficiency, providing better information, and predicting future trends, ultimately helping to reduce emissions and combat global warming.