The ‘ultimate irony’ of emission reduction and AI use

It would be comedy if not real and tragic, the Economic Survey said on Monday calling out the obsession of developed nations to dictate emissions reductions to developing countries while their own use of AI is driving a surge in emissions.

The survey drew attention to an "ultimate irony" on the issue and noted that developed nations are obsessing over prospective emissions from the developing world, even as widespread adoption and race for AI is poised to push up their energy demands like never before.

"It would be a comedy if it were not real and tragic", quipped the Survey, noting that even as developed nations prepare to impose a carbon tax at the border on imports coming into their countries laden with carbon, they are ramping up energy demand like never before, thanks to obsession with letting AI "guide, take over and dominate natural intelligence".

"Demand-side management (DSM) has traditionally been recognised as a significant intervention to reduce energy demand. It is an ultimate irony that even as developed nations obsess over prospective emissions from the developing world, the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence is going to result in the demand for power to expand to levels not seen in decades in America," it said citing industry reports.

A case in point, it said, is one of the leading global technology companies that promised to achieve net zero by 2030 at the turn of the decade.

"But, the race to dominate the emerging technology of Artificial Intelligence has caused its emissions to be higher by 30 per cent by 2023," it said.

It further noted that in a research report published in April, analysts in Goldman Sachs wrote that the demand for power in the US would experience a growth not seen in a generation, thanks to AI and that transmission, one of the major bottlenecks for clean energy transition, and the addition of data centres and AI could exacerbate this.

The Economic Survey went on to say that these developments should convince any reasonable reader that the developed world has not only tied itself into knots but is also contributing – wittingly or otherwise – to deepening and entrenching poverty and inequality in developing and consigning them to perpetual underdeveloped status by coercing them into prioritising emissions over their economies.

"Developed countries, having relied on a fossil fuel-based growth strategy for the past two centuries to reach where they are today, seek ambitious cuts in emissions from developing countries, pushing them to adopt policy measures, instruments and production and energy systems that are distinctly different from the carbon-emitting traditional strategies that fuelled the growth of the former," the Economic Survey said.