On 10 June, OpenAI’s ChatGPT suffered a global outage, causing widespread disruption to users. While the AI system was quickly got back up and running, the outage has prompted an unexpected moment of reflection – not just on our reliance on AI, but on its hidden environmental impact, says Lisa Stanley, Chief Sustainability Officer and Co-Founder of Zero.
The reaction to ChatGPT’s outage is revealing. The level of panic shows just how dependent society has become on high-energy, cloud-based AI tools – often without fully understanding their environmental footprint.”
While digital disruption is far from ideal, a moment like this offers a rare pause and a chance to reflect. These AI systems rely on vast amounts of energy, much of which still comes from non-renewable sources. Not to mention the huge amounts of other resources involved including minerals and water. Even a short-term drop-in usage, like we’ve seen yesterday, gives a meaningful breather for the planet.”
It’s also a stark reminder that as we race to embed AI across industries, we must also invest in greener infrastructure and smarter digital choices. We don’t need to unplug, but we need to be able to access more information on the environmental impacts of our digital usage, be more mindful in the scale and frequency of our AI usage and, finally, choose the most appropriate and efficient AI tools for the task at hand.
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