Reducing the Costs and Environmental Impacts of AI: Understanding User Behavior and the Potential for Information Disclosure

As part of the Center for Industrial Ecology's "Digital Economy and the Environment" series, Dr. Jane Miller of the Vanderbilt Law School will discuss that the focus of much of the research into the growth of AI has been on how to increase energy supply and how AI firms can contract with data centers to shift the timing of demand to reduce the stress on electricity generation. Less research has been done on the extent to which energy and environmental impacts can be reduced by focusing on another type of demand: shifting the amount, type, and timing of AI use by individuals and organizations. Dr. Miller's talk will focus on individual generative AI user behavior and provide a critical contribution to understanding the opportunity for information to shift behavior by exploring the lay state of knowledge about the energy and environmental impacts of AI as well as the potential to alter their behavior after disclosure.

Using a nationally-representative sample, Dr. Miller found that AI users have limited knowledge about the energy and environmental impacts of their day-to-day use of generative AI, with 20% unaware that AI uses electricity and almost one third unaware of its environmental impacts. Her work also assesses behavioral intentions pre- and post-disclosure, thereby providing an initial test of the promise of disclosure for reducing the costs, energy demand, and environmental impacts of AI use.

Dr. Jane Miller is a social psychologist, decision scientist, and current postdoctoral researcher at Vanderbilt Law School. Jane studies how lay people make, interpret, and communicate judgments under uncertainty and risk. At Vanderbilt, she leads a program of research examining various factors that influence support for environmental and energy policies as well as decisions to engage in sustainable behaviors.

Please join us for lunch in Kroon Hall room 321 or view the event via zoom.

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