Eco-news AI

Dear Church Friends
With AI a big talking point right now, not just in politics but in the Church – should your minister use ChatGPT to write their sermon, for example?! – I thought I would write this time about the environmental impact of AI, a topic that isn’t frequently discussed.  The content below comes from Ethical Consumer.
The largest tech companies emit 2-3 percent of the world’s carbon emissions – that’s roughly the same as global aviation. 
Google's greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 were almost double that of 2019, and the company stated that reducing emissions to meet its 2030 net-zero target “may be challenging... due to increasing energy demands from the greater intensity of AI compute”. 
Indeed, this shows no signs of slowing. Global data centre infrastructure is expected to more than double by 2026. In the UK, the government plans to introduce new “AI Growth Zones” to speed up the development of data centres.
In terms of energy use, the Green Web Foundation takes issue with tech companies’ exclusive focus on ‘greening’ their own operations, at the expense of a more holistic view. For example, many companies boast about running their data centres with renewable energy, which looks good on paper. However, they are generally not investing in new renewable generation, but are just taking the renewable capacity out of increasingly stretched national grids.
Companies should instead be helping to decarbonise the grid, and artificial intelligence could open opportunities in this regard. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has (perhaps conservatively) estimated that AI would increase electricity demand by between 2% and 6%, but is confident that the technology will “certainly ... accelerate a more than 6 per cent reduction” by enabling efficiency savings.
Perhaps so, yet Gates’ company appears to be simultaneously using AI to accelerate climate breakdown. Whistleblower reports in 2024 alleged that Microsoft was helping companies extract fossil fuels more efficiently with AI tools, which chimes with Global Action Plan’s assertion that “the first major clients the [AI] industry has been servicing are fossil fuel companies.”
Enabling fossil fuel extraction is particularly egregious, but we should also examine the emissions impact of more everyday ‘digital waste’ created with AI. Big tech’s innovations over the past decade have tended towards addictive software, personalised marketing, data mining and infinite scrolling. These are data-heavy, and therefore energy-heavy processes. Groups such as The People Versus Big Tech have highlighted that the internet needs to become less addictive and less reliant on over-consumption if we are to limit its environmental impact. Regulation of AI usage in advertising is touted as a good starting point.
Without a set of norms and enforced regulation, it seems likely that AI's potential to solve climate issues will amount to little more than a PR trick.
A prayer from Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si:
 
All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe and in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love,
that we may protect life and beauty.
Fill us with peace, that we may live
as brothers and sisters, harming no one.
O God of the poor,
help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, so precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.
Touch the hearts
of those who look only for gain
at the expense of the poor and the earth.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united
with every creature as we journey towards your infinite light.
We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle
for justice, love and peace.