A search on ChatGPT uses about 10 times the amount of electricity that a Google search does, the Dáil has heard as TDs debated the pros and cons of artificial intelligence (AI).
Labour TD Ciarán Ahern said using AI tools “takes an enormous amount of energy” and “we really do need to concern ourselves” with the amount it uses and how this affects not just energy security and costs, but also climate ambitions.
Speaking during the debate, he said “AI is proliferating rapidly and with it [comes] the ever-growing need for data centres”.
The Dublin South-West TD added that 50 per cent of electricity produced in Dublin and Meath goes to data centres and more than a fifth of electricity used in Ireland is used by them.
He was “extremely concerned” with proposed new rules announced by the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) that data centre power sources do not have to be “clean, renewable, sustainable sources”.
The rules “fly in the face of our climate goals” and ideally “we would have a moratorium on new data centres, at least until such a time that we can be sure that they will not pose a threat to our grid or pose a threat to our climate targets”.
Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne said that “if the Labour Party wants to have a moratorium on data centres”, it should have “a moratorium on its use of social media” so it could be taken “more seriously around some of its calls in this space”.
A regular contributor on AI, Mr Byrne said he had long called for Oireachtas hearings and a special committee on the topic and new tech. He said the Government strategy called “AI – Here for Good” is “an excellent document”, but “one of our problems quite often with these is that we say the right things and we do not follow through”.
The Wicklow-Wexford TD expressed disappointment at the lack of a “proactive approach” from most departments and agencies on their use of AI when he posed a parliamentary question to them on the issue.
There were “some notable exceptions in health and in Revenue and, indeed, the cross-Border locks agency”.
The debate was introduced by Minister of State Niamh Smyth who has special responsibility for AI. Ms Smyth said she was pleased to address the House “as Ireland’s first minister of state who has artificial intelligence, AI, in their title”.
A “refresh” last year of the national AI strategy makes the parameters clear for the regulation of AI use in the EU, but, she warned, issues such as privacy, security and job displacement “are just a few of the challenges that are coming with the increasing use of AI”.
Sinn Féin spokeswoman Rose Conway-Walsh said “it is imperative that the Government builds up in-house expertise on AI”.
The Mayo TD said “we talk all the time about the damage that has been done in contracting out” so much decision-making and expertise “that used to be within Government but no longer is”.
Ms Conway Walsh called for” a recruitment drive to get the brightest and the best to work for Government in maximising opportunities and mitigating risks involved with AI”.
Fine Gael TD Maeve O’Connell, a former lecturer in TU Dublin said the arrival of ChatGPT had a “dramatic impact” on lecturers and students. Suddenly assignments that could take weeks of research and writing “could be done with a few clicks”.
In the early stages lecturers could identify the use of ChatGPT quite easily. And the AI tools “struggled” and still do with “Irish English”.
She added that “our students are actually quite smart” and after a while they figured out they could not just “put stuff in” and they learned how to use the tool.
