The Surprisingly Large Carbon Footprint of AI, Deep Learning and Digital Autonomy

The aforementioned conclusions were published in the advisory MIT Technology Review ©2019 about environmental consequences of AI models.  AI researchers have suspected such environmental impacts for years. “While probably many of us have thought of this in an abstract, vague level, the figures really show the magnitude of the problem,” says Carlos Gómez-Rodríguez, a computer scientist at the University of A Coruña in Spain, who was not involved in the research. “Neither I nor other researchers I’ve discussed them with thought the environmental impact was that substantial.” The findings raise an important question: are there viable mitigation strategies that should be pursued?