The use of AI has become so commonly used in everyday life like in work places, schools, customer service, summarizing information, and even creating content. But no one really thinks about the impacts AI has on our environment. Because of how common the use of AI has become in most people’s lives it needs a lot of energy to power it. This is a big issue because the data centers that run AI use a lot of power and fresh water for cooling.

Researchers at Cornell used smart data analysis to look at the environmental impact of AI in each state. They found that if people keep using AI in their everyday lives, AI could put 24 to 44 million tons or carbon dioxide into the air every year by 2030. It would also use up a lot of water as much as 6 to 10 million American households use in a year. Every time you look something up on chat gpt or any AI platform you are using one 12 oz water bottle think about how many times you look something up on these platforms daily. The main problem with it is that it strains local fresh water supply especially in dry areas.

 And it’s not just about the energy use and water AI uses so much power which is creating electronic waste also known as e-waste. E-waste is pushing out toxic heavy metals like lead, mercury, and cadmium this is harming eco systems and wild life it is also very harmful to human life to burn e-waste it can cause neurological damage and even respiratory issues it will take a little bit for this to actually start affecting humans but if we keep using AI the way we are today it could be a major problem in the future.

Newspaper writer, Zoey Dixon said “AI makes it so students don’t actually have to do their work and can just take a picture and put it into AI and they will give you the answers which is not good because students aren’t actually learning. Also AI uses so much water from local water supplies .” While AI offers incredible opportunities for learning and innovation, it’s crucial to understand the impacts this could make on our environment.