Visualizing and ``Budgeting'' the Emissions of Everyday GenAI Use

Authors

Yuheng Ren (King's College London), Luiz Augusto Morais (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco), Frédérique Krupa (L'Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique), Francisco Paulo Magalhães Simões (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco), Nivan Ferreira (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco), Georgia Panagiotidou (King's College London)

Abstract

While the environmental impact of GenAI becomes increasingly significant, and a growing number of tools that aim to raise awareness of this issue, limited attention has been paid to how such information should be visualized and communicated to end users, especially in ways that are easy to understand and interpret. To this end, we designed EcoChat, a Chrome browser extension for the web-based ChatGPT that visualizes carbon emissions of its usage in real time. EcoChat uses various metaphorical representations to contextualize the carbon emissions data and enables users to set up ``carbon budgets'', which are carbon emission allowances representing their own personal goals. Users can compare their carbon budgets with their actual emissions to foster environmental awareness. We reflect on EcoChat's design choices in the context of the current landscape of AI eco-feedback tools, discussing how it addresses several identified shortcomings while also highlighting remaining challenges and future research directions.