Sustainable AI: A Necessity for Industry [In My View]

Abstract

Sustainable artificial intelligence (AI) has gained increasing prominence in academic, policy, and industry discussions, yet the concept remains underspecified and frequently deployed in ways that obscure the environmental and social harms associated with contemporary AI systems. This article argues that, for industry, sustainable AI must be understood not as a set of optional efficiency improvements or “AI for good” initiatives, but as a structural and ethical necessity. Building on the distinction between AI for sustainability and the sustainability of AI, the article situates sustainable AI within the broader evolution of AI ethics, identifying it as a hallmark of a third wave characterized by a structural turn. This perspective moves beyond artefact-level concerns such as fairness or transparency to examine AI’s embeddedness within global sociotechnical systems, including energy infrastructures, mineral extraction, data centers, supply chains, and extraplanetary technologies.