On Monday, January 15, the CGDD’s Ecolab, in collaboration with Afnor, presented the terms of a new working group on the environmental impact of AI. On this occasion, it brought together interested stakeholders for an initial overview of the challenges of AI’s environmental impact and to present the objective of producing an AFNOR Spec, an open, voluntary document that precedes standardization, within six months. The anticipated topics for the WG’s subgroups include the definition of frugal AI, a methodological framework for environmental assessment, best practices, and communication methods.
For Thomas Cottinet, head of Ecolab, the “massive growth” in resource consumption driven by artificial intelligence underscores the “need to objectify the environmental impacts of its deployment” so that France can influence these issues on an international scale. For Guillaume Avrin, National Coordinator for Artificial Intelligence, Anna Medan, Morgan Caraboeuf, and Lina Ismail of AFNOR, they emphasized that the objective of this working group is to “draw on the expertise of researchers and economic stakeholders” as part of this work, which is open to all. Drawing on the current regulatory context, the AI standards currently being developed, and the state of the art, the goal is to pave the way for standardization on the environmental impact of AI and to better defend a French approach to the subject.
For Denis Trystram and Anne-Laure Ligozat, researchers at Ecoinfo, the growth of the digital sector is raising growing concerns about its impacts. Moreover, these impacts are often minimized, or even forgotten, due to a failure to consider the materiality of digital equipment. Ultimately, modeling the indirect or rebound effects of AI deployment promises to be particularly complex, but essential for informed decision-making.Pierre Monget of the Hub France IA highlighted the difficulty so far in reaching agreement among economic stakeholders on a definition of frugal AI, hence the usefulness of bringing together ecosystem stakeholders today to discuss it. This is already one of the Hub France IA’s initiatives, in the context of their AI & Environment Working Group.
Mathieu Wellhoff reiterated ADEME’s commitment to the environmental impact of digital technology, with several studies and benchmarks already produced. This working group is the first step in long-term work to better quantify the environmental impact of AI at both ADEME and Ecolab.
From Ecolab, a big thank you to all our speakers and participants, both in person and online!
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