'Responsible AI is Sustainability' - Dissecting AI & the Environment

In this interview from the AI Summit New York, Chuck Martin talks to David Green, Consulting Director for AI & IoT at Omdia. David explores recent research from AI Business on sustainability and responsible AI.

The Role of Sustainability in AI Research

Chuck Martin
Hi, this is Chuck Martin of the AI Summit in New York City. I have with me now David Green from Omdia. So, Omdia does a ton of research which everyone knows about in the market, but you did something in sustainability recently. Tell me more about that.

David Green
We worked with you guys at AI Business and also IoT World Today where we’ve done a couple of surveys. I think a lot of people talk about sustainability, but sometimes it can be hard to work out what does that translate to? What actual impactful steps can you take? And how does technology help people to do that?
So, we've done a couple of surveys, one focused around the general what is sustainability, what does it mean to people, how are they targeting it?

And then one just recently on responsible AI as well, which is sustainability. Sustainability is more than just environmental. It's social, it's economic, and it's environmental together. So, you know, all these things combine to be more than just energy saving.

Key Research Insights: Business Goals vs. Sustainability Goals

Chuck Martin
So, what are some of the things you found out in your research?

David Green
If I look at the first survey this year where we were really kind of benchmarking what does sustainability mean to people, I think it's when we asked enterprises what's the biggest challenge that prevents you from being able to take steps. Of course, cost is number one. But the second most important answer was identifying the technologies that will help.

And actually, we did a survey through an Omdia client around industry 4.0, manufacturing, AI, IoT, where we asked something similar about what are the drivers for you for investing in industry 4.0 technology.

CSR, social responsibility, came out as the lowest of the 14 answers. And yet, number one was increased productivity, and number two was decreased energy cost.
That really drives home that I don't think people draw the link necessarily between the business goal and the sustainability goal and how technology gets there.
Technology might help you save energy costs, which is great for the business bottom line, but that in turn is the sustainability goal. Enterprises need help from their vendors to bridge that connection.

Regulatory and Market Drivers in Sustainability

Chuck Martin
Any findings in there that indicate anything of what it looks like going forward?

David Green
A lot of enterprises are going to be driven by regulation; they're always going to be reporting on ESG, for example. But I think the fact that they're pushing that up the supply tiering to their vendors, to say, "we expect you to help, you come and find us the technology, and you can help push that forward."
But as with everything else, the same with the rest of AI and IoT, it's one use case at a time. The more that people do it, and they’re able to prove out that ROI, and then link to sustainability, it will snowball for them.

Future Research Focus: The Cost of AI Inferencing

Chuck Martin
So, going forward, like the next year, do you see Omdia doing any more research in sustainability?

David Green
Absolutely. It’s more than just environmental. One which I know is going to come up in the next year is around what’s actually the cost of inferencing, for example, and how do we reduce that.

I think that's probably one which we'll see a lot of attention on over the next 12 months.

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