Most UK adults are now aware of or have used genAI tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft CoPilot and Google Gemini according to a new survey.

Data from CloudNine shows that 83% of Brits are familiar with generative AI, including 27% who have tried using at least one genAI tool and 11% who now use at least one tool regularly.

The findings, collected through a survey of 1,000 UK consumers, suggests that 54% of those who know about genAI are also aware that the expansion of genAI technology could be harmful to the environment and contribute to global warming.

Around 10% of those who already regularly use these tools agreed they would be willing to pay more to use products and services that use genAI if the additional money was spent on making the technology more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.

The environmental transparency of AI developers is also a concern. More than a third (35%) agreed that Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT should remind users of the environmental impact each time they use them to encourage people to use them responsibly.

Nearly one in five (19%) don’t trust genAI providers, including OpenAI and Meta, to always act responsibly in managing and reducing their environmental impact, and almost half (45%) want laws that require companies to be transparent about the environmental and climate change impact of their GenAI systems. 

Processing a single genAI request, such as a ChatGPT task, is estimated to use around 10x more electricity than a Google search, and research from Morgan Stanley indicates that power demand from generative AI will increase by around 70% every year until 2027, accelerating the need for data centre capacity. 

According to the UN, more than 190 countries have adopted a series of non-binding recommendations on the ethical use of AI, which covers the environment. As well, both the European Union and the US have introduced legislation to temper the environmental impact of AI.

This week, the United Nations Environment Programme released an issue note that explores AI’s environmental footprint, including not just electricity consumption and emissions data but also the impact of the growing demand for minerals and metals vital for digital technologies, such as data centres and processing chips.

Over in America, US Democratic lawmakers this year introduced the Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act of 2024, a bill aimed at creating agreed standards to measure and report the full range of AI’s effect on the environment, and create a voluntary framework for AI developers to report their impact.

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“Generative AI has huge potential to make our lives better, but there is a race against time to make it more sustainable before it gets out of control,” said Uday Radia, owner of CloudNine PR. 

“And while our actions as individual users may seem insignificant, more than a third of those familiar with genAI believe it would be helpful if genAI tools such as ChatGPT reminded users about their environmental impact every time they logged in – to encourage more responsible usage.”