Many people have seen enough of artificial intelligence by now to appreciate its potential benefits to humanity, as well as its risks. Not so many may be aware of what a big guzzler of natural resources it is. As the Financial Times reported this week, Big Tech companies are using ever more water to cool their energy-intensive data centres. The thirst for power and water of the server farms needed to run generative AI is even more intense. In Davos last month, Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO, warned that future AI would consume so much electricity it would require an energy breakthrough — say, nuclear fusion — to power it.
现在很多人已经看到了人工智能的潜在好处和风险，但并不是很多人意识到它对自然资源的巨大消耗。正如英国《金融时报》本周报道的那样，大型科技公司为了冷却高能耗的数据中心而使用越来越多的水资源。而用于运行生成式人工智能的服务器农场对电力和水资源的需求更加巨大。在上个月的达沃斯论坛(Davos)，OpenAI的首席执行官萨姆•奥尔特曼(Sam Altman)警告说，未来的人工智能将消耗如此之多的电力，以至于需要能源突破，比如核聚变，来为其供电。