I would Imagine the carbon footprint of iNaturalist is quite large considering the amount of photos/data being stored and the huge calculations being done on the photos to suggest identifications (I read in the NewScientist that training AI can amount to about 284 tonnes of carbon dioxide footprint …

Not familiar with any calculations that have been done or published, but you can find some information here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/privacy (lists some of the third party services they use, like Amazon Web Services) https://www.calacademy.org/efficient-daily-operations (the iNat offic…

That’s an interesting question, I guess- how much, if at all, does iNat increase travel for the sake of nature observation? Personally, I do and have traveled more (on a local scale) with iNat observations as an explicit motivator- suggesting that participation in iNat has amplified my preexisting …

It increases the amount I travel on foot for sure. I’d be really interested in a poll on the ways people have changed their patterns of travel for different modes/distances since joining iNat!

For naturalists seeking novel species, iNaturalist can encourage people to stay local as iNaturalist makes it easier to seek out and identify less popular taxa. For me personally, it has injected much interest in going out. I have mined out birds, butterflies and dragonflies in my local area (over…

@Allan2700 , it’s an interesting question, but a complicated one, and honestly not one we have the resources to answer in a quantitative fashion (assuming that’s even possible). @alex estimates that we spent ~1,400 kilowatt hours training our last computer vision model, and if you believe the 2.21 po…

[image] kueda: @alex estimates that we spent ~1,400 kilowatt hours training our last computer vision model Our current computer vision training workstation, at full train, seems to pull 450-500 watts (per nvidia-smi and the rated TDP of our CPU). At 120 training days, and 24 hours in a day, …

Quantifiable amounts are probably unrealistic, but perhaps relative differences could be considered! With the CV having put preliminary if not final (as one of two needed) IDs, there is a reduced need for identifiers to make high level identifications. There is probably a nett reduction in whatever…

[image] kiwifergus: Quantifiable amounts are probably unrealistic, but perhaps relative differences could be considered! “Relative” assessment and “quantitative” assessment are not mutually exclusive. A thorough relative assessment would require quantification in my mind, e.g. “Amazon virtual…

[image] kueda: so it is not true that there is a reduced need for identifications. Uploaded as “Unknown” - ID’d as Class or Order - ID’d to species - confirmed and now RG [4 steps] vs Upload as AI suggestion - confirmed and now RG [2 steps] or Upload as AI suggestion - ID to different sp…

Carbon Footprint of iNaturalist

General

clay_s March 31, 2020, 2:31pm 4

If you include contributors impact from traveling, taking, posting, and identification of the observations, I imagine it might be quite high. Otherwise I imagine it pales in comparison to AI creation.

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Carbon Footprint of iNaturalist

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