Artificial intelligence has become so crucially integrated in our lives that we hardly even reflect on its usage anymore. In fact, about 84% of high school students reported using AI for help with schoolwork as of May 2025, according to research by College Board. The impact doesn’t just stop with young people: about two out of three people choose to use ChatGPT instead of Google, as reported by National University. Taking advantage of AI models in our daily lives has become highly normalized, from summarizing an article or writing an email to help our productivity, to creating images or writing stories for entertainment. We are in an age where this technology is booming in nearly every sector, making things more efficient or advanced. However, there is one area that could be highly negatively impacted, and that not enough people are talking about: the environment.
These AI models bring about two main issues for our planet: water and energy consumption. As explained by MIT News, training the models could require huge amounts of electricity, which results in increased carbon dioxide emissions that are warming our Earth. In fact, “a generative AI training cluster might consume seven or eight times more energy than a typical computing workload,” as explained by Noman Bashir, the co-author of the paper, “The Climate and Sustainability Implications of Generative AI.” The electricity demand doesn’t stop at training: what many people don’t realize is that each question asked to a GenAI model will consume roughly five times more power than a regular web search. Overall, AI is just more energy-intensive than other technologies, and a lot of people are not addressing it.
Furthermore, the high-functioning servers needed for all stages of artificial intelligence (training, deploying, and re-adjusting) can require staggering amounts of water to cool down, which can put pressure on local water supplies and strain ecosystems. In fact, according to Newsweek, ChatGPT-3 consumes a 16-oz water bottle for every 10-50 responses. That may not seem like much to some people, but it definitely adds up when the program is receiving billions of questions each day. This can cause droughts, as well as bring about other ecological issues.
On the other hand, AI could be a potential game-changer for environmental scientists, researchers, and activists by utilizing its best-known ability: processing immense amounts of data that would be tedious, time-consuming, or nearly impossible for humans to analyze. According to the World Economic Forum, artificial intelligence is currently being used to track when, where, and how icebergs are melting, as well as mapping deforestation, both of which will allow scientists to better understand and fix the problem we are facing. Other ways AI helps include predicting weather patterns and climate disasters, making recycling and waste management more efficient, detecting and mapping ocean pollution, and tracking emissions.
While this cutting-edge technology can clearly provide massive benefits to climate research and scientific solutions, it is important to keep in mind that this does not improve or mitigate the impact individuals can have as their daily usage racks up. Artificial intelligence may become a tool that shapes the future of environmental analysis for the better, but it is still currently highly costly in water and energy. Due to the electricity demand of its training and deployment, as well as the hydropower required to maintain its software at a cool temperature, relying on AI for everyday tasks that could be easily accomplished by a human will simply increase the user’s greenhouse gas emissions and leave a negative imprint on our environment. Next time you are considering asking ChatGPT for guidance on a simple topic, such as drafting an email, organizing a calendar, or creating a list, among others, think about the impact you are having on your world, and whether it is worth it. It can be hard to break away from the simple habit of turning to AI to answer our questions, but in order to preserve the future of our planet, it is crucial to step back and ask if you could do this yourself by simply dedicating a few more minutes.
