How to reduce the carbon footprint of AI?

Can artificial intelligence be deployed to slow down global warming, or is AI one of the greatest climate sinners ever? That is the interesting debate that finds (not surprisingly) representatives from the AI industry and academia on opposite sides of the issue. While PwC and Microsoft published a report concluding that using AI could reduce world-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 4 percent in 2030, researchers from the University of Amherst Massachusetts have calculated that  training a single AI model can emit more than 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent—nearly five times the lifetime emissions of the average American car. Who is right?… [Continue Reading]