3: How Can We Assess AI Value to Citizens?: Defining Emergy as a Process of Resource Consumption⁵

Whiteshield has developed a mechanism by which the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) may be weighed against the energy and resources it consumes.

The concept of emergy – the resource requirements of any product or service – will define how much value the citizen is able to reap from AI.

Current economic measures understate energy consumption.

Most economies still follow a growth model that assumes unlimited resources. This makes it increasingly important to measure how much energy is really consumed in economic development.

Standard measures underestimate energy use because energy is required not only for the final production of goods and services but also for all the inputs along the way. Energy can come from many sources: oil, electricity, services or even human effort. The total of all these inputs is called emergy, measured in emjoules (emergy joules). Emergy converts every input – fuel, power, services and labour – into the equivalent amount of solar energy needed to produce it.