Reporting and Analysing the Environmental Impact of Language Models on the Example of Commonsense Question Answering with External Knowledge
Human-produced emissions are growing at an alarming rate, causing already observable changes in the climate and environment in general. Each year global carbon dioxide emissions hit a new record, and it is reported that 0.5% of total US greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to data centres as of 2021. The release of ChatGPT in late 2022 sparked social interest in Large Language Models (LLMs), the new generation of Language Models with a large number of parameters and trained on massive amounts of data. Currently, numerous companies are releasing products featuring various LLMs, with many more models in development and awaiting release. Deep Learning research is a competitive field, with only models that reach top performance attracting attention and being utilized. Hence, achieving better accuracy and results is often the first priority, while the model's efficiency and the environmental impact of the study are neglected. However, LLMs demand substantial computational resources and are very costly to train, both financially and environmentally. It becomes essential to raise awareness and promote conscious decisions about algorithmic and hardware choices. Providing information on training time, the approximate carbon dioxide emissions and power consumption would assist future studies in making necessary adjustments and determining the compatibility of available computational resources with model requirements. In this study, we infused T5 LLM with external knowledge and fine-tuned the model for Question-Answering task. Furthermore, we calculated and reported the approximate environmental impact for both steps. The findings demonstrate that the smaller models may not always be sustainable options, and increased training does not always imply better performance. The most optimal outcome is achieved by carefully considering both performance and efficiency factors.
Code (0)
등록된 구현이 없습니다.
Methods 이 논문이 사용한 방법론
Similar Papers 제목 키워드 기반
The Environmental Cost of LLMs in AIED: Reporting and Practices
Large Language Model (LLM) usage in recent years has become increasingly widespread in the Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) community. While LLMs offer unique avenues for learners and educators, using LLMs com…
How Do Companies Manage the Environmental Sustainability of AI? An Interview Study About Green AI Efforts and Regulations
With the ever-growing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), AI-based software and its negative impact on the environment are no longer negligible, and studying and mitigating this impact has become a critical area of…
Prompt EngineeringEnvironmentally-Extended Input-Output analyses efficiently sketch large-scale environmental transition plans -- illustration by Canada's road industry
Industries struggle to build robust environmental transition plans as they lack the tools to quantify their ecological responsibility over their value chain. Companies mostly turn to sole greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions r…
Bike Frames: Understanding the Implicit Portrayal of Cyclists in the News
Increasing cycling for transportation or recreation can boost health and reduce the environmental impacts of vehicles. However, news agencies' ideologies and reporting styles often influence public perception of cycling.…
A Holistic Assessment of the Carbon Footprint of Noor, a Very Large Arabic Language Model
As ever larger language models grow more ubiquitous, it is crucial to consider their environmental impact. Characterised by extreme size and resource use, recent generations of models have been criticised for their vorac…
Language ModelingLanguage Modelling