Thaima Samman of the European Network for Women in Leadership and Dr. Sasha Luccioni of Hugging Face Discuss Europe’s AI Revolution and Climate Solutions in Artificial Intelligence
In the latest episode of the Washington AI Network Podcast, recorded at the Élysée Palace during the No AI Without Women conference, host Tammy Haddad sat down with two key figures shaping the future of AI: Thaima Samman, president of the European Network for Women in Leadership (WIL Europe) and partner at SAMMAN Law & Corporate Affairs, and Dr. Sasha Luccioni, AI and climate lead at Hugging Face and a 2024 Time100 Most Influential People in AI honoree. Their conversation spanned regulation, education, and how energy usage factors into AI’s long-term impact.
The conversation comes as governments and companies face growing questions about how to navigate AI’s rapid development. From the need for flexible policies to the hidden energy demands of AI systems, to the potential use of nuclear power, Samman and Luccioni offer fresh perspectives on how to balance innovation with responsibility in the run-up to the Paris AI Action Summit in February.
on December 5, 2024.
In the interview, Samman highlighted the importance of collaboration, emphasizing that public and private sectors must work together to address challenges we may not yet fully understand.
“Public money should go to fundamental research. This is where you have the breakthrough, because you don’t know what you’re looking for and that’s where you need to put the money. The second element is that if private companies want to have access to the money, it needs to be a partnership for them to also fund the public research. That could be a way to do it,” said Samman, as she reflected on the role of public and private partnerships in advancing AI research.
The conversation then turned to the importance of building public trust in AI, with Samman underscoring the role of education in demystifying the technology.
“AI is a technology which, as with other technologies, may seem complicated at first. But in reality, when you put your mind to it, it’s not that complicated… You need to learn, but it is accessible, and it’s so useful afterward that it’s important to get into education—from the youngest age to the oldest—so people can feel at ease,” she said.
Samman noted the urgency of bridging global divides through collaborative efforts. “AI has no borders. My dream is for this summit [AI Summit] to build bridges for people around the world to discuss AI dynamics and work together,” she said.
The discussion also highlighted how AI’s material impact—such as its energy and water usage—is often overlooked. Dr. Luccioni joined the conversation to discuss Hugging Face’s latest sustainability initiative.
“The main project I’m working on right now is called AI Energy Score. And the goal is we’re benchmarking all of the models we can get our hands on, so essentially millions of AI models on different tasks… I’m really inspired by the EPA’s Energy Star program because essentially that’s how it started. They took a bunch of dishwashers and they measured their energy use, they took the same microwaves, et cetera, and they established ranges,” said Luccioni.
Luccioni explained how this new initiative helps organizations and developers make informed decisions about the energy efficiency of their AI models, paving the way for more sustainable technology solutions.
Dr. Luccioni noted that there is a lack of understanding on the energy costs of AI technologies. “I was talking to someone recently about image generation. They’re like, ‘Well, it runs on my phone. How much energy could it use? Because I’m using Midjourney on my phone?’ I’m like, ‘Well, the Midjourney is not on your phone. It’s on a data center.’ And they don’t see that, right?” she said.
“There are counties [in Virginia] where something like 60% of the water usage is by data centers versus residents, versus people. And water and energy and greenhouse gases… because it’s so immaterial, people don’t make that connection. When you turn on your engine, you can smell the exhaust pipe, but when you turn on a chatbot, you don’t feel the heat,” Luccioni continued as she discussed the unchecked energy consumption of data centers supporting AI technologies.
In discussing AI regulation, Luccioni underscored the importance of treating AI as a tangible, current technology rather than an abstract concept, and she raised concerns about unchecked energy consumption, particularly by data centers.
“They should start treating AI not as some magical future unicorn but as a current technology that’s being used by billions of people at this point, and start treating it as a concrete thing like anything else. They regulate the car you drive; they should regulate the AI that you use,” said Luccioni, as she discussed global leaders and AI regulation.