The hidden cost : the environmental impact of artificial intelligence: assessing the effectiveness of the EU AI Act and the need for additional regulatory measures : to what extent does the EU AI Act contribute to the mitigation of AI’s environmental impact, and what supplementary regulatory measures are necessary?

Siebenrock, Helena Agnes

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/52837

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Authors

Siebenrock, Helena Agnes

Advisor(s)

Pereira, Clara Martins

Abstract(s)

The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) has brought significant benefits across various sectors, yet it also poses substantial environmental challenges. This thesis, undertaken as part of the combined LL.M. Law in a Digital Economy and MA in Transnational Law program at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, explores the environmental impact of AI and conducts an analysis of the effectiveness of the EU AI Act in addressing these challenges. The thesis proposes two primary regulatory measures: imposing stricter regulations on compute, i.e. the infrastructure underlying AI technologies, to address sustainability of hardware, resources and infrastructure in general; and implementing environmental harm-specific provisions through additions to the EU AI Act. This two-pronged approach aims to target regulation at component-level and system-level. Stricter component-level regulation would ultimately feed in to greater sustainability of AI and general computing, and therefore, provide positive benefits to other resource-intensive computing, such as blockchain. By examining the relevant competition, innovation and environmental protection interests, this thesis aims to provide a balanced regulatory approach for mitigating AI’s environmental footprint.