Skip to main content

Sustainability

Mapping the Ethics of Generative AI: A Comprehensive Scoping Review

Hagendorff (2024)

Category
Risk Domain

The development and operation of AI systems causing environmental harm, such as through energy consumption of data centers, or material and carbon footprints associated with AI hardware.

Generative models are known for their substantial energy requirements, necessitating significant amounts of electricity, cooling water, and hardware containing rare metals. The extraction and utilization of these resources frequently occur in unsustainable ways. Consequently, papers highlight the urgency of mitigating environmental costs for instance by adopting renewable energy sources and utilizing energy-efficient hardware in the operation and training of generative AI systems.(p. 8)

Other risks from Hagendorff (2024) (16)