The Carbon Emissions of Writing and Illustrating Are Lower for AI than for Humans
This addresses environmental concerns for policymakers and AI developers by quantifying emission reductions, though it is incremental as it builds on existing emissions analysis without new methods.
The study compared greenhouse gas emissions of AI systems (ChatGPT, BLOOM, DALL-E2, Midjourney) versus humans for writing and illustrating tasks, finding that AI emits 130 to 1500 times less CO2e per page of text and 310 to 2900 times less per image.
As AI systems proliferate, their greenhouse gas emissions are an increasingly important concern for human societies. We analyze the emissions of several AI systems (ChatGPT, BLOOM, DALL-E2, Midjourney) relative to those of humans completing the same tasks. We find that an AI writing a page of text emits 130 to 1500 times less CO2e than a human doing so. Similarly, an AI creating an image emits 310 to 2900 times less. Emissions analysis do not account for social impacts such as professional displacement, legality, and rebound effects. In addition, AI is not a substitute for all human tasks. Nevertheless, at present, the use of AI holds the potential to carry out several major activities at much lower emission levels than can humans.