{"title":"Watts and Bots: The Energy Implications of AI Adoption","authors":"Anthony Harding, Juan Moreno-Cruz","doi":"arxiv-2409.06626","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"With the rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence, there are expectations\nfor a proportional expansion of economic activity due to increased\nproductivity, and with it energy consumption and its associated environmental\nconsequences like carbon dioxide emissions. Here, we combine data on economic\nactivity, with early estimates of likely adoption of AI across occupations and\nindustries, to estimate the increase in energy use and carbon dioxide emissions\nat the industry level and in aggregate for the US economy. At the industry\nlevel, energy use can increase between 0 and 12 PJ per year, while emissions\nincrease between 47 tCO$_2$ and 272 ktCO$_2$. Aggregating across industries in\nthe US economy, this totals an increase in energy consumption of 28 PJ per\nyear, or around 0.03% of energy use per year in the US. We find this translates\nto an increase in carbon dioxide emissions of 896 ktCO$_2$ per year, or around\n0.02% of the CO$_2$ emissions per year in the US.","PeriodicalId":501273,"journal":{"name":"arXiv - ECON - General Economics","volume":"68 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"arXiv - ECON - General Economics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/arxiv-2409.06626","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
With the rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence, there are expectations
for a proportional expansion of economic activity due to increased
productivity, and with it energy consumption and its associated environmental
consequences like carbon dioxide emissions. Here, we combine data on economic
activity, with early estimates of likely adoption of AI across occupations and
industries, to estimate the increase in energy use and carbon dioxide emissions
at the industry level and in aggregate for the US economy. At the industry
level, energy use can increase between 0 and 12 PJ per year, while emissions
increase between 47 tCO$_2$ and 272 ktCO$_2$. Aggregating across industries in
the US economy, this totals an increase in energy consumption of 28 PJ per
year, or around 0.03% of energy use per year in the US. We find this translates
to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions of 896 ktCO$_2$ per year, or around
0.02% of the CO$_2$ emissions per year in the US.