Jevons Paradox explains that when technology becomes more efficient and cheaper to deploy, people often use more, not less of it. Rather than conserving environmental resources, this increase in demand can lead to greater overall consumption and, in turn, environmental harm.
In the context of artificial intelligence, Jevons Paradox illustrates why cheaper chips and larger data centers do not necessarily make the technology more environmentally sustainable. Rather, as the overall costs fall, governments and companies may scale their AI systems and, in doing so, require more and more raw environmental materials. What may be seen as environmental progress can mask a deeper issue, which is that the cycle of accelerating technological use can intensify climate risks.
Jevons Paradox is helpful to the study of AI ethics and law because it illustrates how optimistic technological advances can undermine our collective obligations to environmental sustainability. Efficiency can be progress, but it's very pursuit and can lead us to become what we set out against.
From an ethics perspective, it is not helpful to treat efficiency alone as a primary solution. We need to measure progress by evaluating the efficacy of measured corporate practices, strategic government policies, and insightful cultural norms that have the foresight to curtail negative impacts that energy consumption may have on vulnerable populations and the environment.
For further study: William Stanley Jevons, The Coal Question (London: Macmillan, 1865).