IMF warns AI to hit almost 40% of jobs worldwide and worsen overall inequality

Guardian Nigeria

Watch IMF warns AI to hit almost 40% of jobs worldwide and worsen overall inequality - Guardian Nigeria on Dailymotion

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00:00 Let's say I ask 10 to 50 questions of ChatGPT.

00:04 The hugely popular chatbot would need to gulp about 500ml of water to provide me with the

00:09 answers.

00:10 That's roughly the amount in this standard bottle of water.

00:14 Hundreds of millions of users then, all submitting prompts, quickly shows just how thirsty artificial

00:19 intelligence can be.

00:20 It's little known details like this that help to shine a light on Big Tech's water

00:25 footprint - an often overlooked issue, but one that is increasingly coming under public scrutiny

00:30 as global demand for AI gathers pace.

00:33 In July of 2023, for example, protesters took to the streets of Uruguay's capital city

00:38 to demonstrate against Google's plan to build a data centre.

00:42 The proposal sought to use vast quantities of water at a time when the South American

00:46 country was suffering its worst drought in 74 years.

00:50 Xiaolei Ren, a researcher at the University of California, recently published a paper

00:55 looking at the resources needed to power AI models, as well as what can be done to try

01:00 to quench the thirst of this juggernaut.

01:02 In general, the public is getting more knowledgeable and aware of the water issue.

01:06 If they learn that the Big Techs are taking away their water resources and they're not

01:12 getting enough water, nobody will like it.

01:14 I think we're going to see more clashes over the water usage in the coming years as well.

01:18 So this type of risk will have to be taken care of by the companies.

01:23 In just the last few months, tech giants deeply involved with AI research have reported a

01:32 massive jump in their water consumption.

01:35 Researchers say that AI is partly to blame, as companies use millions of litres of water

01:39 to keep temperatures in check at their data centres.

01:43 It's easy to think of the internet as something that's intangible, but whether it's asking

01:47 questions of ChatchEBT or logging in to check your emails, the computing power needed to

01:51 keep these websites running relies on a lot of water.

01:55 Microsoft disclosed in its latest environmental sustainability report that its global water

02:00 use rose by more than a third from 2021 to 2022, climbing to nearly 1.7 billion gallons.

02:07 For Google, total water consumption at its data centres and offices came in at 5.6 billion

02:13 gallons in 2022, a 21% increase on the year before.

02:18 It means that Microsoft's annual water use was the equivalent to more than 2,500 Olympic-sized

02:23 swimming pools, while for Google, this would be enough water to fill nearly 8,500 pools.

02:29 Both companies are working to reduce their water footprint and become water positive

02:34 by the end of the decade, meaning they aim to replenish more water than they use.

02:39 It's notable, however, that their latest water consumption figures were disclosed before

02:44 the launch of their own respective ChatchEBT competitors.

02:47 The computing power needed to run Microsoft's Bing Chat and Google Bard could mean more

02:52 water usage over the coming months.

02:55 Water scarcity is a big problem on every continent, and one that's being exacerbated by the climate

03:00 crisis.

03:01 Here in Dubai, a region where the heat is extreme and water is precious, policy makers

03:06 and business leaders are gathering at COP28 to discuss what more can be done.

03:10 What really needs to be in place is an international governance body that can regulate, and that

03:16 is what COP is to a certain extent, a global governance institution that tries to regulate,

03:22 that tries to monitor complex problems.

03:24 One subset of that complex problem is AI, which is at the moment in a very transient

03:31 phase.

03:32 It's a reflection moment for AI, so it could go either way, and it's very important that

03:36 we govern that direction to be less energy intensive and more within planetary boundaries.

03:44 Data centers are part of the lifeblood of big tech, and a lot of water is required to

03:49 keep them running smoothly.

03:50 For Meta, it's these data centers that generate not only the highest percentage of its water

03:55 use but also the lion's share of its energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

04:00 Tens upon rows of computing servers in hubs the size of warehouses work to store and transfer

04:05 all our digital information, with almost all this energy then converted into heat.

04:11 Companies like Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft all use various cooling systems to prevent

04:16 their servers from overheating.

04:18 One common method involves the use of cooling towers.

04:21 This heat rejection device works like a giant air conditioner, typically using water in

04:25 an evaporation process to expel building heat into the atmosphere.

04:30 Another technique often used is outside air cooling, or free cooling.

04:34 This system takes the outside air, which has a lower temperature than inside the building,

04:38 to directly cool down the servers.

04:40 This process can work without the need for cooling towers, but water evaporation is still

04:45 needed when the outside air is too hot, often at the height of summer when people use water

04:49 the most and drought is at its worst.

04:52 Basing data centers in cooler climates is one way to get this free cooling, but at present

04:57 only a fraction of them are currently housed in colder environments.

05:00 The US, by a long way, operates far more data centers than any other country, with more

05:05 than 5,300.

05:07 That's 10 times more than second place Germany.

05:10 Anne Skeet, Senior Director of Leadership Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied

05:14 Ethics says tech companies will need to be a little more judicious on AI if they are

05:19 to meet their environmental goals.

05:20 I think we are going to see some activity from regulators.

05:23 There's already some increased requirements coming in the new year for companies to disclose

05:29 their water usage in the European Union.

05:31 And I think that requirement is a necessary one for people to start to appreciate the

05:37 issue and think about their own choices in it.

05:42 They may have to become a little more heavy-handed in terms of what they're asking companies

05:47 to do and even, you know, think about placing certain limitations on companies if we don't

05:53 see either market forces or innovation contribute to bringing the use of water down.

05:59 AI is one of the most prominent and fastest growing workloads in data centers, which means

06:04 big tech is likely to need a lot more of this precious resource.

06:08 In fact, the computing power required for AI is estimated to double every 100 days and

06:13 it's expected to increase by more than a million times over the next five years.

06:18 Wren and his colleagues have predicted that global AI demand could be accountable for

06:22 up to 6.6 billion cubic meters of water withdrawal by 2027.

06:27 Remarkably, that would be roughly equivalent to the total annual water withdrawal of Washington

06:32 State.

06:33 Researchers say this is deeply concerning at a time of growing water scarcity.

06:37 Alongside the urgent environmental risks, tension over the water usage of data centers

06:42 and human needs has been at the heart of social problems across the globe.

06:47 Following the protests in Uruguay over Google's plan to build a data center, the tech giant

06:52 reportedly said the project was still at an exploratory phase and stressed that sustainability

06:57 remained at the heart of its mission.

06:59 It's thought social challenges such as this are likely to increase over the coming years,

07:04 prompting many to ask what some of the solutions could be to meaningfully address big tech's

07:08 growing water footprint.

07:10 This water is a shared challenge by all of us, so nobody can solve this issue without

07:16 global efforts.

07:17 So as users, if let's say we're just doing some random stuff, we might want to avoid

07:24 using generative AI because those are generally more resource consuming compared to a simple

07:31 search.

07:32 So there are a lot of ways individual users can contribute to the water users' saving.

07:37 But the first step is that we need to be aware of this issue.

07:40 We need to have the visibility of the water efficiency of the services.

07:44 [MUSIC]

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