What Impact Can AI Have on the Planet? Finding Fair Solutions with Dr. Shaloei Ren | Tangelic Talks – EP04

Tangelic Talks – Episode 04

What Impact Can AI Have on the Planet? Finding Fair Solutions with Dr. Shaloei Ren

8 minutes to read

In this episode of Tangelic Talks, we talk with Dr. Ren to unpack the complex relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change. Dr. Ren shared insights into how AI can be a powerful tool for advancing climate solutions, from optimizing renewable energy systems and improving energy efficiency to aiding in precision agriculture and climate modeling. However, we also explored the other side of the coin: the environmental costs of AI itself.

The Double-Edged Sword: AI’s Role in Sustainability

AI can both contribute to and mitigate climate change. On one hand, large foundational models significantly increase carbon emissions and energy consumption. On the other, smaller, specialized AI models are already providing solutions, such as:

  • Integrating Renewable Energy: AI helps optimize power grids by predicting energy demand and managing battery storage.

  • Air Pollution Forecasting: AI-powered models predict air quality and carbon intensity, allowing for proactive pollution control.

  • Optimizing Climate Models: AI speeds up climate simulations, making it easier to assess long-term climate risks and responses.

Dr. Ren believes that in the next 5-10 years, AI will become more energy-efficient, but in the short term, its overall impact on climate remains negative.

The Role of AI in the Global South

While AI benefits can reach communities worldwide, the environmental burdens are not equally distributed. Data centers are often located in low-income or marginalized areas, leading to local pollution and water stress. However, AI can support the Global South by providing:

  • Water Resource Management: AI-driven tools help allocate water in drought-prone regions.

  • Energy Planning: AI assists in designing solar and battery storage solutions for off-grid areas.

  • Policy Support: AI helps draft regulations and optimize resource distribution.

Dr. Ren emphasizes that ensuring equitable AI benefits requires deliberate planning and investment in sustainable infrastructure.

Looking Ahead: Can AI Be a Climate Ally?

Dr. Ren remains optimistic that AI will become more sustainable. He compares AI’s current energy inefficiency to early automobiles—while initial fuel efficiency was poor, technological advancements eventually improved it. Similarly, ongoing AI research focuses on increasing efficiency, reducing carbon footprints, and optimizing resource use.

Key strategies for making AI more climate-friendly include:

  1. Smarter Data Center Placement: Locating data centers in regions with clean energy sources and lower water stress.

  2. AI Workload Management: Shifting computing tasks to off-peak hours and more sustainable locations.

  3. Standardized Reporting: Implementing uniform environmental impact metrics across AI companies.

  4. Regulatory Collaboration: Governments and industry leaders must work together to create policies that balance innovation with sustainability.

Dr. Ren encourages AI developers, policymakers, and the public to take an active role in shaping AI’s future. “We need to design AI systems with sustainability in mind,” he says. “By making conscious choices today, we can ensure that AI serves as a tool for climate solutions rather than an environmental liability.”

Thought Provoking Q&A Session with Dr. Ren

AI faces fundamental challenges in achieving complete safety and fairness because it is trained on data distributions, optimizing for average or high-probability performance. Eliminating bias entirely is nearly impossible, though mitigation strategies exist. One approach is adjusting training loss functions to prioritize disadvantaged groups, giving them higher weight during training. However, when deployed in real-world scenarios, AI encounters unseen data, leading to errors or hallucinations. While researchers are actively developing techniques for better alignment and safety, fully eliminating these challenges remains difficult.

Dr. Shaloei Ren

Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California.

Dr Shaloei Ren

Dr. Shaloei Ren is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Riverside. His research strives to build socially and environmentally responsible computing, with a broad emphasis on AI, sustainability, and more recently health-informed AI that minimizes the public health impact of AI and leverages AI to improve public health. His work has influenced AI policies adopted by many international organizations and governments such as the United Nations, UNESCO and WHO. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2015) and several paper awards, including at ACM e-Energy (2024, 2016) and IEEE ICC (2016). He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top