Nvidia & Google clash with climate groups at UN talks

AT the UN climate talks in Brazil, artificial intelligence is being cast as both a hero worthy of praise and a villain that needs policing.

- BY DANNY DE VAAL

Tech companies and a handful of countries at the conference known as COP30 are promoting ways AI can help solve global warming, which is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

They say the technology has the potential to do many things, from increasing the efficiency of electrical grids and helping farmers predict weather patterns, to tracking deep-sea migratory species and designing infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather. Climate groups, however, are sounding the alarm about AI's growing environmental impact, with its surging needs for electricity and water for powering searches and data centres.

They say an AI boom without guardrails will only push the world farther off track from goals set by the 2015 Paris Agreement to slow global warming.

"AI right now is a completely unregulated beast around the world," said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity. On the other hand, Adam Elman, director of sustainability at Google, sees AI as "a real enabler" and one that's already making an impact. If both sides agree on anything, it's that AI is here to stay.

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