Does AI Hold Space in Sustainability?

❗Please Read❗ This is not a seminar! Participants are encouraged to read the material in advance so we can spend more of the session discussing, questioning and comparing perspectives. If you have your own research, experience or came across something on the internet (blogpost, article etc.) that would add to the discussion, do contribute! Suggested Pre-Reading ## Main paper The Green Paradox: The Climate, Environmental, and Sustainability Implications of Artificial Intelligence ## Secondary paper Making AI Less 'Thirsty' ## Legacy paper The Water Footprint of Data Centers AI is increasingly being used to tackle sustainability problems, from improving energy efficiency to modelling climate risks. But building and running AI systems also comes with an environmental cost of its own. For this Paper Club, we'll use three papers to explore both sides of that equation. Our main paper, The Green Paradox, offers a broad look at the climate, environmental and sustainability implications of AI. We'll also draw on research into AI's water use and the water footprint of data centres to dig deeper into one of the more tangible costs of scaling AI. We'll first unpack the key ideas and findings from the papers, then put them to the test through three questions for debate. Can AI meaningfully contribute to sustainability? Where do its environmental costs become harder to justify? What does the responsible or ethical use of AI entail; does it even exist? Rather than starting from the assumption that AI is either good or bad for sustainability, this session brings the AI and sustainability communities together to examine where the trade-offs lie, and what we should be paying closer attention to as AI continues to scale. More About the Host and Facilitator Host details are currently in progress and will be updated soon. More About the Series Paper Club is Lorong AI’s community-driven initiative where members gather to discuss and analyze academic papers, research articles, or key developments in AI. Get involved: Learn more about Lorong AI | Speaker Sign-up | WhatsApp Community | LinkedIn | X