arXiv Machine Learning

Position: Neglecting the Sustainability of AI is Fuelling a Global AI Arms Race

arXiv:2502. 20016v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Sustainability encompasses three key facets: economic, environmental, and social.

arXiv AI
2d ago

Beyond State-of-the-Art: Standardising Environmental Impact Metrics for AI Research

The paper highlights that as Large Language Models grow in capability and prevalence, their environmental footprint is increasing, yet the machine learning community lacks standardized carbon accounting practices. An automated review of 5,285 NeurIPS 2025 papers shows almost no reporting of environmental impact. To address this, the authors propose standardized sustainability metrics for training efficiency, heuristics for estimating inference carbon costs, a software tool called carbonbenchmark for tracking emissions, and the SMAJ framework to encourage prioritizing computational efficiency and environmental accountability over marginal accuracy gains.

By Lachlan McGinness, Dan Pagendam, Robert Offner
arXiv AI
Jun 11

Sustainability assessment using multimodal AI agents

arXiv:2507. 17012v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Reducing the rapidly growing environmental impact of the computing industry requires assessing the emissions of electronics at scale.

By Zhihan Zhang, Alexander Metzger, Yuxuan Mei, Felix H\"ahnlein, Zachary Englhardt, Tingyu Cheng, Gregory D. Abowd, Shwetak Patel, Adriana Schulz, Vikram Iyer
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 30

The Rise of AI in Weather and Climate Information and its Impact on Global Inequality

arXiv:2603. 05710v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: AI development's current trajectory risks automating and amplifying the North-South divide in the global climate information system.

By Amirpasha Mozaffari, Amanda Duarte, Lina Teckentrup, Stefano Materia, Gina E. C. Charnley, Lluis Palma, Eulalia Baulenas Serra, Dragana Bojovic, Paula Checchia, Aude Carreric, Francisco Doblas-Reyes
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 4

Geospatial Foundation Models to Enable Progress on Sustainable Development Goals

arXiv:2505. 24528v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Foundation Models (FMs) are large-scale, pre-trained artificial intelligence (AI) systems that have revolutionized natural language processing and computer vision, and are now advancing geospatial analysis and Earth Observation (EO).

By Pedram Ghamisi, Weikang Yu, Xiaokang Zhang, Aldino Rizaldy, Jian Wang, Chufeng Zhou, Richard Gloaguen, Gustau Camps-Valls
arXiv AI
6d ago

Beyond the Last Truffula Tree: SustainAI - A Water-Aware, Closed-Loop Framework for Environmentally Accountable AI

SustainAI is a water‑aware, closed‑loop framework that embeds environmental accountability into AI deployment. It combines real‑time water metering, a hallucination‑aware penalty model, and a water‑aware routing algorithm that considers regional water stress. In tests with small language models, water footprints varied 11‑fold across data centers, and 1,335 inference runs consumed about 399 mL of water but yielded only 240 correct outputs, highlighting the resource cost of inaccurate responses.

By Farnaz Farid, Tashfia Towkee, Sania Nasreen, Sami bin Azad
arXiv AI
Jun 15

Position: AI Must Become Planet-Centered, Not Just Human-Centered

arXiv:2606. 13704v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: This position paper argues that contemporary AI paradigms are insufficient for supporting complex global goals and introduces Planet-Centered AI (PCAI) as a design philosophy and research agenda that reorients AI toward planetary-scale socio-ecological systems and their long-term trajectories.

By Maria Perez-Ortiz