Greening Mobile AI?

Mobile AI is very much a work in progress. No better time at the outset, then, to consider its environmental implications. As mobile media and communication are woven together with AI, what are their entanglements—and what are the implications for the environment? First, given the slow progress on concerted effort over many years to tackle reuse, repair and ‘greening’ of mobile phones, as well as other mobile technology devices, and associated information and communication technologies, and the research and critique engaging with this endeavour—it is critical to consider the best focus as we move into the AI phone and beyond-the-phone future. Second, the article dissects key trends and issues—hot spots—in the environmental implications of the wider networks, infrastructures, systems and ecologies where mobiles and AI are being deployed in combination—but their ecological implications deserve greater attention. Third, the article proposes priority elements for the research and policy agenda in greening mobile AI.