Experts are warning that we’re rolling out generative AI tools without a full grasp of their true environmental impacts.
“Ultimately, we found that the common understanding of AI’s energy consumption is full of holes,” MIT Technology Review wrote in a recent analysis.
While image generators used the equivalent of five seconds of microwave warming to generate a single 1,024 x 1,024 pixel image, video generators proved far more energy-intensive. To spit out a five-second clip, the researchers found that it takes the equivalent of running a microwave for over an hour. If they’re consuming far more power as the length increases, the math doesn’t look good.
Meanwhile, tech giants are investing tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure buildouts, sometimes abandoning climate goals in the process. In its 2024 environmental impact report, Google admitted that it was woefully behind its ambitious plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2030, seeing a staggering 13 percent increase in carbon emissions year over year, in large part due to its embrace of generative AI.
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“Ultimately, we found that the common understanding of AI’s energy consumption is full of holes,” MIT Technology Review wrote in a recent analysis.
While image generators used the equivalent of five seconds of microwave warming to generate a single 1,024 x 1,024 pixel image, video generators proved far more energy-intensive. To spit out a five-second clip, the researchers found that it takes the equivalent of running a microwave for over an hour. If they’re consuming far more power as the length increases, the math doesn’t look good.
Meanwhile, tech giants are investing tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure buildouts, sometimes abandoning climate goals in the process. In its 2024 environmental impact report, Google admitted that it was woefully behind its ambitious plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2030, seeing a staggering 13 percent increase in carbon emissions year over year, in large part due to its embrace of generative AI.
Researchers Just Found Something Extremely Alarming About AI's Power Usage
The carbon footprint of generative AI-based tools that can turn text prompts into videos is far worse than we thought.
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