The Carbon Footprint
To work, AI needs a lot of this, which usually comes from burning fossil fuels like coal or gas.
What is electricity (or energy)?
AI computers use millions of gallons of this every day to keep from overheating.
What is water?
When we throw away old AI chips and computers, it creates this type of electronic waste.
What is e-waste?
Scientists use AI to help protect these "Kings of the Jungle" and other animals from hunters.
What are endangered species (or lions)?
Training one large AI model can create as much pollution as driving five of these vehicles for their entire lives.
What are cars?
Asking an AI 20 to 50 questions is like pouring out one standard bottle of this size.
What is 500ml (or 16 ounces)?
To make AI hardware, miners have to dig up ______ from the ground.
What are minerals (or metals)?
AI can look at satellite photos to see how many of these are being cut down in the rainforest.
What are trees?
AI are in giant buildings called "Data ______" filled with thousands of humming computers.
What are Centres?
If a data centre uses too much local water, it can cause problems for these people who grow our food.
Who are farmers?
Instead of throwing AI chips away, this "R" word describes taking them apart to use the parts again.
What is recycling?
AI can help Smart Homes save money by automatically turning these off when you leave the room.
What are lights?
Because AI computers get very hot, companies often build data centres in cold countries like Iceland to save on this.
What is air conditioning (or cooling)?
Most of the water used by AI is lost through this process, where liquid turns into steam to carry heat away.
What is evaporation?
Most e-waste ends up in these giant piles, where toxic chemicals can leak into the soil.
What are landfills?
AI can predict these huge waves or other natural disasters to help people get to safety.
What are tsunamis (or floods/storms)?
This 2-word term describes the total amount of greenhouse gases produced by our AI use.
What is a carbon footprint?
To save water, some companies are experimenting with putting their computers at the bottom of this body of water.
What is the ocean?
This metal, found in AI batteries and chips, is often called "white gold" and requires huge amounts of water to mine.
What is lithium?
Farmers use AI drones to find exactly where bugs are, so they use less of these toxic bug-killers.
What are pesticides?