Climate change is a debate that experts have engaged in over the years. But did you know that social media and now generative AI can actually make a difference?
A quick glimpse of today’s world sees people riding public transport and busy engaged in their smartphones. They might be liking a friend’s post, responding to a quick business email, or simply applying for their next dream job.
As per recently published studies, 62% of the world is busy with their smartphones and they’re active on social media. On average, every user spends close to 3 hours per day, scrolling through different apps.
Whether you read a post, engage with an article, or simply share information filled with high resolution images - it’s a lot of data transfer that’s required. This gets distributed across thousands of PCs all over the globe. It’s like loading videos from apps such as YouTube where you don’t link a single data HQ but instead get it from several kinds of different sources in various nations.
Moving data from one place to the next needs more energy and this comes through electronic devices. It might be in the shape of routers, mobile phones, or a certain server. Every one of these devices takes in so much energy to work while others must cool down. All the energy needed for these simple tasks arises from fossil fuels.
As per studies, TikTok is certainly the worse in terms of being eco-friendly. It users so much data to have videos running on the platform on a constant basis. A lot of them are already preloaded and you might not ever see it.
In terms of envorinment friendly, it’s LinkedIn that leads the pack, thanks to it being mostly text based. It entails fewer images and videos so scrolling through it does not use so much information.
Now comes the topic of social media not being the only offender. Yes, Generative AI can not only produce images and text but songs and videos too. It’s like reshaping so much creativity that’s getting plenty of appeal. It might even be deemed a necessity that comes at the cost of the environment.
The more powerful the type of AI, the more energy it uses. It’s quite unlike how videos get streamed and pages load on the web. Let’s take ChatGPT who uses so much energy, just to write novels. It entails this much calculation, even if the text does not use a lot of data.
Now the question on environmental advocates' minds is how sustainable is AI really? How much energy does it use? Well, research shows that processing a single query uses the same amount of energy as keeping a bulb of 60 watts open for two minutes.
This is unlike a regular query on Google Search where ten times less energy is needed to get what a user is looking for happily. So when you come to think of how popular of a tool ChatGPT is, the energy consumption is massive and over the years, it would rise further.
As per experts, each person on the planet can make a change that will be better for the earth and also work to reduce carbon footprints. It will entail a combo of different actions done individually and changes to the system.
The top ways include reducing screen time, making sure energy-saving settings are active by default, and using less demanding or energy-draining apps when possible. This means less video and AI and more text-based platforms. Surprisingly, using Wi-Fi over regular mobile data is also recommended as it uses less energy.
Wow, who knew that such simple tactics could ensure we remain connected and avoid polluting the environment at the same time?
Read next: Google’s Featured Snippets Are Displaying Conflicting Information From The Same Source
A quick glimpse of today’s world sees people riding public transport and busy engaged in their smartphones. They might be liking a friend’s post, responding to a quick business email, or simply applying for their next dream job.
As per recently published studies, 62% of the world is busy with their smartphones and they’re active on social media. On average, every user spends close to 3 hours per day, scrolling through different apps.
Whether you read a post, engage with an article, or simply share information filled with high resolution images - it’s a lot of data transfer that’s required. This gets distributed across thousands of PCs all over the globe. It’s like loading videos from apps such as YouTube where you don’t link a single data HQ but instead get it from several kinds of different sources in various nations.
Moving data from one place to the next needs more energy and this comes through electronic devices. It might be in the shape of routers, mobile phones, or a certain server. Every one of these devices takes in so much energy to work while others must cool down. All the energy needed for these simple tasks arises from fossil fuels.
As per studies, TikTok is certainly the worse in terms of being eco-friendly. It users so much data to have videos running on the platform on a constant basis. A lot of them are already preloaded and you might not ever see it.
In terms of envorinment friendly, it’s LinkedIn that leads the pack, thanks to it being mostly text based. It entails fewer images and videos so scrolling through it does not use so much information.
Now comes the topic of social media not being the only offender. Yes, Generative AI can not only produce images and text but songs and videos too. It’s like reshaping so much creativity that’s getting plenty of appeal. It might even be deemed a necessity that comes at the cost of the environment.
The more powerful the type of AI, the more energy it uses. It’s quite unlike how videos get streamed and pages load on the web. Let’s take ChatGPT who uses so much energy, just to write novels. It entails this much calculation, even if the text does not use a lot of data.
Now the question on environmental advocates' minds is how sustainable is AI really? How much energy does it use? Well, research shows that processing a single query uses the same amount of energy as keeping a bulb of 60 watts open for two minutes.
This is unlike a regular query on Google Search where ten times less energy is needed to get what a user is looking for happily. So when you come to think of how popular of a tool ChatGPT is, the energy consumption is massive and over the years, it would rise further.
As per experts, each person on the planet can make a change that will be better for the earth and also work to reduce carbon footprints. It will entail a combo of different actions done individually and changes to the system.
The top ways include reducing screen time, making sure energy-saving settings are active by default, and using less demanding or energy-draining apps when possible. This means less video and AI and more text-based platforms. Surprisingly, using Wi-Fi over regular mobile data is also recommended as it uses less energy.
Wow, who knew that such simple tactics could ensure we remain connected and avoid polluting the environment at the same time?
Read next: Google’s Featured Snippets Are Displaying Conflicting Information From The Same Source
