Green TD Roderic O’Gorman has called on the government to regulate artificial intelligence.
During a Dáil debate on the issue, the Green leader said that an AI-generated image of him is circulating on Twitter where it is claimed that he has “leaked a secret of wealth generation.”
Calling the image “crude”, O’Gorman said there will be a time when AI-generated content is “absolutely indistinguishable from reality” and that the government needs to meet the moment head-on.
O’Gorman said there are positive implications about AI, but the technology always brings risks.
“In this environment, the public requires clear and trustworthy information about how AI is being used in their daily lives, and in particular to ensure that the public interest is served, that individual rights and freedoms are protected from exploitation, and that the adoption of this technology is used within the boundary of our climate commitments.”
He said that it is important the government establishes what AI should be used for, saying “it has to work for the benefit of people and society.”
Speaking as a Green TD, O’Gorman also raised concerns about the environmental impact of AI generation and questioned the government’s plans to increase the number of data centres to accommodate the AI boom.
“We must also be upfront about the huge energy use that AI technology necessitates,” he said.
“As a country that already expends a disproportionate percentage of our energy generation on data centres, we need to acknowledge that the growth in AI use has huge potential to pressure the ability to achieve carbon reduction targets in Ireland and internationally.”
“While acknowledging the role that data centres play in the wider IT sector, which is an important employer in Ireland, we have to be honest about the trade-offs in terms of less capacity for housing connections and in eating up new renewable energy capacity rather than allowing that new renewable energy capacity replace existing fossil fuel sources.”
A 2021 research paper from Google and the University of California at Berkeley estimated the training process for ChatGPT’s model consumed 1,287 megawatts of electricity (enough to power about 120 average American homes for a year) and generate about 552 tons of carbon dioxide in the process.
O’Gorman stated, “we have to be honest that there are trade-offs to the new government’s stated policy of liberalising the granting of planning for additional data centres that will entail from that new policy.”
Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe said, “having listened to the debate, I believe we have three options: one, pull the plug, hunker down and pretend AI is not happening; two, take no risks and let somebody else do it; and three, try to be at the forefront and shape AI ourselves.”
“In my view, we should be taking the third option. It is what we have done with other technological developments in this country. It has brought us challenges, but also significant benefits.”
Fianna Fáil TD Niamh Smyth, in her new role as Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation said “AI is here to stay, it is here for good and we have to embrace it but also recognise the challenges.”