New research conducted by researchers at UC Irvine, Victoria University of Wellington, Westmont College, the University of Kansas, and MIT, states that the carbon emissions of writing are lower for AI than for humans. As AI systems proliferate, their greenhouse gas emissions are an increasingly important concern for human societies. The study analyzes the emissions of several AI systems (ChatGPT, BLOOM, DALL-E2, Midjourney) relative to those of humans completing the same tasks. 

The study concludes that an AI writing a page of text emits 130 to 1500 times less CO2e than a human. Similarly, an AI creating an image emits 310 to 2900 times less. Emissions analysis does not account for social impacts such as professional displacement, legality, and rebound effects. In addition, AI is not a substitute for all human tasks. Nevertheless, at present, the use of AI holds the potential to carry out several major activities at much lower emission levels than humans.

While it can be challenging to define the scope of the problem when calculating the emissions produced by an AI system, two major components of that impact are the training of the model (a one-time cost that is amortized across many individual queries) and the per-query emissions. To offer two data points on the environmental impact of training models, training GPT-3 (the system on which the popular ChatGPT chatbot is based) produces approximately 552 metric tons of CO2e.

The results for each specific task reflect an array of assumptions about the nature of these tasks and the people and AIs engaged in such tasks. Writing an in-depth, heavily- referenced, original article on a niche scientific topic is currently beyond the capabilities of an AI and, therefore, is a context where human effort is more efficient than AI effort. Drawing a stick figure is likely faster for a human than an AI, whereas the reverse is true for a complex illustration such as one resembling an oil painting.

According to the study, these findings are also based on the current state of AI and human activity; future changes in technology and society will undoubtedly change the relative environmental impact of AI as well.