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MIT AI Risk Initiative
BackHigh energy consumption of large models
Impacts of AI (Environment)
Miscoordination

High energy consumption of large models

Risk Sources and Risk Management Measures in Support of Standards for General-Purpose AI Systems

Gipiškis et al. (2024)

SourceDOI
Sub-category
Risk Domain
6Socioeconomic & Environmental
6.6Environmental harm

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.

"Training and deploying large models require substantial energy expenditure. The trend toward developing larger models exacerbates this issue. This can lead to excessive energy usage and have a negative environmental impact."(p. 54)

Entity: Who or what caused the harm

Human

Due to a decision or action made by humans

AI system

Due to a decision or action made by an AI system

Other

Due to some other reason or is ambiguous

Intent: Whether the harm was intentional or accidental

Intentional

Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal

Unintentional

Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal

Other

Without clearly specifying the intentionality

Timing: Whether the risk is pre- or post-deployment

Pre-deployment

Occurring before the AI is deployed

Post-deployment

Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed

Other

Without a clearly specified time of occurrence

Part of Impacts of AI (Environment)

Other risks from Gipiškis et al. (2024) (144)

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms)

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms) > Violence and extremism

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms) > Hate and toxicity

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms) > Sexual content

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms) > Child harm

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded

Direct Harm Domains (content safety harms) > Self-harm

1.2 Exposure to toxic content
Not codedNot codedNot coded
View all 144 risks from this paper →