AI will quickly change the Earth into a sizzling ball of fire.
Recent research shows that the future of the development of our civilization, which is seen in robotic technologies and artificial intelligence, is under threat, because these systems have a disastrous effect on the terrestrial climate.
Researchers are alarming that we need to change our approach to the development of the latest technologies, because we will do our own destruction. Currently, there are 3,200 companies operating in the world that deal with artificial intelligence systems. Research carried out by specialists from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst shows that the side effect of their work on AI is the emission of much more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all cars driving on the ground.
The biggest problem is the collection and storage of data obtained and computing centers. All this is done via supercomputers and servers. Their functioning, however, involves absorbing huge amounts of energy and generating equally huge amounts of heat. That's why corporations spend millions of dollars on the most effective cooling systems. Despite this fact, CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is at a much higher level than cars.
Researchers evaluated AI systems that were created for analysis and text generation, namely Transformer, ELMo, BERT and GPT-2. The GPT-2 itself was trained by people from OpenAI on up to 8 million websites. Thanks to this, the algorithm could acquire the necessary knowledge to create almost perfect manipulated texts. Training all of the above-mentioned neural networks causes emission of up to 284 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which is up to 5 times more than the average car over its entire lifespan.
However, it turns out that the biggest problem is the technique of trial and error (Neural Architecture Search) in the training of neural networks. It absorbs the most energy, but it does not last long. Scientists believe that IT specialists should better think about their technologies and start using those that consume the least energy and do not burden computing systems, or simply design them for CO2 emissions.
In the following years, the interest of companies in the technologies of robots and artificial intelligence will be growing rapidly, so the problem will intensify. Scientists emphasize that artificial intelligence is to allow our civilization to enter a higher level of development, start exploring the cosmos and improve the quality of life for billions of people, but in the meantime it is unexpectedly preparing us for extermination. The fate of our planet is in our hands. The question is, are we able to control our development to counteract the vision of life in a world torn by climatic cataclysms ?!