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Will AI really be worth the cost?

It uses loads of power and some think it won鈥檛 be as revolutionary as tech companies say.

Over the last 18 months the world has gone pretty crazy about AI. Apple has been jumping into the space and Samsung is forecasting higher profits than ever from its advanced chips. Tech companies say it鈥檚 the future and may even put a lot of us out of a job. But a new report from one of the world鈥檚 top banks says that generative AI, things like ChatGPT or Gemini, might not prove to be the gamechanger that tech companies have been promising.

Generative AI also uses huge amounts of energy and water, behind the super smart tech are massive data centres that drive up greenhouse gas emissions. So we鈥檙e asking is AI really going to be worth the cost to our wallets and potentially our planet?

Imran Rahman Jones, a 成人论坛 Tech Reporter, tells us how the drive for AI has bumped up Google鈥檚 emissions by almost half and explains the ways tech companies are trying to compensate for the surges.

Also Ed Zitron, who writes about tech and hosts the Better Offline podcast, tells us why he thinks the hype around generative AI is in danger of becoming overblown.

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Email: whatintheworld@bbc.co.uk
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Presenter: Alex Rhodes
Producers: Benita Barden and Maria Clara Montoya
Editors: Verity Wilde

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15 minutes

Last on

Fri 12 Jul 2024 02:50GMT

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  • Thu 11 Jul 2024 17:50GMT
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