Power-hungry AI is driving a surge in tech giant carbon emissions. Nobody knows what to do about it
Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the world has seen an incredible surge in investment, development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) applications. According to one estimate, the amount of computational power used for AI is doubling roughly every 100 days. Researchers Gordon Noble and Fiona Berry turn our attention to the environmental impacts which have been largely overlooked. A single query to an AI-powered chatbot can use up to ten times as much energy as an old-fashioned Google search.