Current technologies, including AI, are not environmentally friendly

Current information technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), are not environmentally friendly. One of the great limitations they have, because of the very characteristics of the electronics they use, is that they consume a lot of energy, they need very strong cooling mechanisms that use too much watersaid Juan Humberto Sossa Azuela, director of the Computer Research Center of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN).

In an interview with The dayasks to see generative artificial intelligence such as the ability of machines to develop tasks similar to those made empathy, Machines cannot replace us.

The researcher considers that Mexico can be a reference in the development of AI at the Latin America level. The only country, perhaps, that would be compared to what we are doing is Brazil, having research centers and high level universities.

It emphasizes that the Polytechnic, since 2020 imparts the engineering in artificial intelligence and the Bachelor of Data Science, with their respective postgraduate degrees, and this year the first students graduated. The demand is such, he points out, that to admit students, excellence is requested in the admission exam.

– There is a lot of talk about artificial intelligence, but how does it really work?

– What does artificial intelligence is to combine algorithms so that a machine can do certain things.

A machine based on an artificial intelligence engine is a predictor, using the tools of statistical probability, predicts what I am going to listen or see. It generates referrals or variations about what you have already learned, but it is not that it is creating from nothing but it is about the knowledge it already has.

– Are new technologies accelerating climate change?

–In recent investigations of the University of California have detected that the generation of a 100 words text created by ChatgPT (generative artificial intelligence) spends an average of 519 milliliters of water, almost the content of an average bottle.

The calculation as we know is less than 100 years old, since the transistor (semiconductor electronic device) was developed since 1948, then, Let’s not hope that in less of this period we already have a technology that is ecological. Probably within 200 years we have one that consumes much less energy.

Although in the IPN, he points out, new cooling strategies for digital systems are generated. What we are using are alternate forms of computation. We return to the initial scheme of analog computing, which consumes less energy, because we reduce the current that will pass through the entire circuitry and therefore need much less strong cooling mechanisms.

– Humanity is close to having to apply the three laws of robotics that Isaac Asimov raised: a robot should not harm a human being or allow damage to their inaction; A robot must obey the orders of human beings, except if they conflict with the first law; A robot should protect its own existence, as long as it does not conflict with the first or second law?

– For those laws to be launched on current machines, they have to make their own decisions, which is not completely possible, because it is the human being who in the end develops the algorithms behind. Although there are signs that they can do it, they still do not guarantee that the machine can decide for itself.

We cannot say that a machine has free will like human beings, because they are neither aware of themselves nor can they experiment in the broad sense. Currently, We are still far from the machines make decisions for themselves, their development is limited to the human being, because they depend on their programming.

There must be a human being who schedule that a machine does not harm another human being, for example. The artifact by itself cannot do it, I want it to be clear, he says.

Ethics and responsibility in the use of that technology depend on the human being. AI is a long -range tool, which can be used for better or worse, with which, even a third World War can be unleashed, but it will depend on a group of people to make that decision, not the machines.

– What are the projects of the Polytechnic with artificial intelligence?

–In the Polytechnic, it seeks to use AI and data science as tools to solve the problems posed by society. We want to train a technologist, a person who is able to use knowledge to achieve this goal.

The IPN has an artificial intelligence laboratory. In it, almost 90 percent of scientists develop projects in this field.

Research uses tools, algorithms or engines already established to solve problems. But, also the Polytechnic creates New models of training algorithms, and that is what allows us, for example, to publish in high impact magazines.

Currently, the Institute works on a system that monitors the actions of the elderly in their homes and sends a signal on the phone of a relative, if necessary. Measure vital signs and remember when and what medications take.

Recognizes the intention of the government to develop its own technology, such as electric cars, but points out that We don’t want to get a technology overnight eitherrequire a maturation and I am sure that none of the countries power the product came out. It’s the same as we have to do.

The important thing is not to say who arrived sooner or later, but to say that we arrive and that we are able to produce our own technologyhighlights.