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Items tagged with: DigitalEthics

I made an infographic based on the United Nations University report ‘Environmental Cost of AI's Energy Use: Carbon, Water and Land Footprints’.

#DigitalEthics #AIEthics #DataCenters

Illustration of data centers pulling water from a nearby water source, electricity flowing to the data centers, fogs of water leaving the data centers. A garbage truck leaving the data centers with e-waste. Wind turbines on land closer to the water. Three floating islands in the sky: (1) A ship dumping e-waste that pollutes water for a community. (2) An excavation with a shovel and bulldozer, digging up land to find minerals. (3) People typing away on their computers. Alongside the illustrations are info boxes, that start on the people with computers: 1. Day-to-day ‘prompting’ is 80-90% of total energy demand of AI. 2. More than 90% of AI computing capacity is concentrated in just two countries – the U.S. and China 3. AI-related water consumption could equal the basic annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people by 2030. 4. Renewable energy sources may reduce carbon emissions but also increase water and land use. 5. Land footprint may exceed 14,500 square kilometres — roughly twice the size of the Jakarta metropolitan area.  6. AI infrastructure projected to generate up to 2.5 million tonnes of e-waste annually by 2030. 7. Burden of e-waste falls on lower-income countries with limited capacity for safe disposal. 8. Production of critical minerals raises concerns about environmental degradation and social inequities.
#datacenters #aiethics #digitalethics

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