Understanding the Environmental Impact of Generative AI Services

The past few decades have been marked by the ever-increasing presence of digital technology. This growth, often called digital transformation, places a heavy burden on our environment. We are now facing a potential new phase of digital transformation,6 represented by the emergence of generative AI (GenAI), a subfield of artificial intelligence focused on generating content, such as human-like text, code, and images.14 In particular, the deployment of GenAI as a service, such as ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion, is raising questions around sustainability. The sustainability of any computing technology, however, cannot be addressed without a way to evaluate its environmental impact.