Why does Bill Gates claim that artificial intelligence can help fight climate change?

Recently, Bill Gates participated in a conference organized by his venture capital fund Breakthrough Energy .

At the event in London, The philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder said the artificial intelligence (AI) will be more of a help than a hindrance in fighting the climate change .

As indicated, is convinced that this will allow countries to consume less energy .

Despite fears that new data centers could deplete green energy reserves, said AI would help the technology and electricity grids are more efficient .

Countering arguments that progress could dramatically increase energy demand and the need for more fossil fuels, he said: “Let’s not exaggerate” .

“Data centers represent, in the most extreme case, a 6% increase (in energy demand), but it is probably only 2 to 2.5%. The question is: will AI accelerate a reduction greater than 6%? And the answer is: without a doubt ” he said in statements saved by Guardian .

Estimates of Goldman Sachs they detail this A query to a chatbot like ChatGPT requires about 10 times more electricity to process than a Google search. .

According to a report from the aforementioned source, This could mean that carbon dioxide emissions from data centers will double by 2030 .

However, for Gates, The additional demand created by these centres may lead to further investment in green electricity .

Indeed, technology companies They are “seriously willing” to pay more to use clean energy sources and thus “be able to say that they are using them.” said the philanthropist.

Your risk fund, Breakthrough Energy has invested in more than 100 companies dedicated to the energy transition according to data retrieved by The Guardian.

Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation Trust invests about a third of its $77 billion in assets in Microsoft, which in turn is OpenAI’s largest external investor .

This latter company is the head of ChatGPT among other products.

In the same way, Microsoft has opted for AI with Copilot a virtual assistant that runs on Windows

In the same vein as Gates, research published in Scientific reports on nature in February 2024 said the following about generative artificial intelligence .

“Our results reveal that AI systems emit between 130 and 1,500 times less CO2 equivalent per page of generated text compared to human writers, while AI illustration systems emit between 310 and 2,900 times less CO2 equivalent per image than their human counterparts. . Emissions analyses do not take into account social impacts such as business travel, legality and rebound effects. Furthermore, AI does not replace all human tasks. However, today, the use of AI offers the potential to perform several important activities with emissions levels much lower than those that humans can generate.

However, There are a number of challenges to be addressed .

Among them are: the collateral implications of building new data centers and using newer, more energy-consuming devices .

Gates warned that The amount of green electricity needed to phase out fossil fuels is not being produced fast enough .

This is one of the reasons why believes that achieving the goal of net zero emissions by 2050 is a goal that will take longer .

“If you try to draw a map and say, ‘Let’s go to zero by 2050,’ you say: “Another 10 or 15 years might be more realistic” . It’s very difficult to see. “I don’t think we’re going to reach zero in 2050,” the Microsoft co-founder stressed at the conference.