Just a few sentences. It only takes three or four sentences to get the response you need from a computer, but those few sentences do more than you’d think. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a type of program that allows the user to type a prompt into the program and get a response that would typically require human intelligence. Although generative AI has multiple benefits, one of the main disadvantages is the negative environmental impact it has on the Earth. The environment is so important to our health as humans and the health of animals, but generative AI is simply ruining it. Using AI is so easy it seems harmless, but with every prompt and response we get from an AI generator, we hurt the Earth in so many ways.

Every week I see people using ChatGPT to assist them with their schoolwork. I collected information from a survey I sent to 20 of my peers asking them if they use generative AI. Thankfully, around 70% of them said they don’t, but around 30% said they do. Of that 30%, about 5% said they use it daily, 14% say they use it weekly and 9% use it monthly. This information only represents 20 people out of the hundreds of students that attend Kaneland High School. 

In fact, the national percentage of generative AI users is a little bit larger. In a September 2024 article from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, they reported on research they conducted to determine the amount of people who use generative AI on a national scale. 

“The [real time population survey] revealed that in August 2024 almost 40% of the U.S. population ages 18 to 64 used generative AI to some degree, and almost 1 in 3 respondents said they used it daily or at least once but not every day during the week prior to the survey,” according to the article.

 The number of people using generative AI continues to grow as it gets more useful and efficient. This is only going to hurt us in the long run.

Due to the number of people using generative AI throughout their day, I’ll clarify how using it impacts the environment.

The two main impacts that generative AI has on the environment are its massive energy requirements and the amount of water it uses. AI data centers that consist of computers to run AI programs use a lot of energy. When you ask ChatGPT to write an essay for you, a computer has to use a ton of energy to generate multiple paragraphs and sentences to follow the prompt it was given. An article released by Adam Zewe, a writer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) news office, discusses the environmental impacts of generative AI.

“The computational power required to train generative AI models that often have billions of parameters, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, can demand a staggering amount of electricity, which leads to increased carbon dioxide emissions and pressures on the electric grid,” Zewe wrote.

The extreme energy requirements lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming. AI data centers also use a lot of water, which is something that Zewe’s article also mentions.

“Beyond electricity demands, a great deal of water is needed to cool the hardware used for training, deploying, and fine-tuning generative AI models, which can strain municipal water supplies and disrupt local ecosystems,” Zewe wrote.

 If you were to use your computer and leave a bunch of tabs open running separate tasks, you would quickly notice that the computer gets very hot and needs to cool down. AI data centers work in a very similar way. The computers and machines are processing extreme calculations and prompts, meaning they get very hot. A bunch of water is needed to help cool the machines down, which impacts our access to water as a resource.

But just how bad is AI for the environment in comparison to other factors? In today’s society, there are many things that drive climate change that we should be prioritizing taking care of. However, AI is linked to some of these contributors in a couple of ways. 

According to the United Nations (UN), the burning of fossil fuels is the highest contributor to climate change and makes up about 90% of carbon dioxide emissions and 68% of greenhouse gas emissions. These gases, when released into the atmosphere, pose a threat to Earth’s environmental health. They act as a blanket trapping the sun’s heat, which as a result warms the Earth.

But how does this relate to generative AI? Generative AI data centers still rely on energy created from the burning of fossil fuels, leading to these emissions. Additionally, because AI data centers need so much energy, a large amount of fossil fuels are being burned to supply that energy.

James O’Donnell and Casey Crownhart, senior reporters for the MIT Technology Review, discussed the impact that AI data centers have on the environment.

“The carbon intensity of electricity used by data centers was 48% higher than the U.S. average,” O’Donnell and Crownhart wrote. The amount of energy and electricity that these data centers are using is continuing to increase, which is something that O’Donnell and Crownhart have noticed.

“[By 2028], AI alone could consume as much electricity annually as 22% of all US households,” O’Donnell and Crownhart wrote. These numbers that are constantly rising only mean worse things for the environment.

According to the UN, the effects of climate change on Earth include hotter temperatures, an increased number of droughts, storms becoming more severe, the ocean beginning to rise and warm, species going extinct, food becoming scarce and many other impacts on both the environment and society.

One of my favorite things to do is to go outside and enjoy the beauty of nature. Oftentimes when I’m feeling stressed, overwhelmed or have a lot on my mind, I’ll go outside and spend a couple minutes breathing in some fresh air. I also visit Colorado a lot, and exploring the mountains is something that I’ve grown to love. It’s fascinating to look around and see such jaw-dropping views. Even on a smaller scale, I love to observe local ecosystems and watch animals interact with the environment that surrounds them. If we keep using generative AI so carelessly throughout our day, the impact that it will leave on the environment years from now is scary and completely avoidable. I find it hard to understand that we live in such a beautiful world with a unique environment and we are ignorant to the fact that we are destroying it.

Many argue that even though generative AI is bad for the environment, we live in a world where we could not function without it. Although generative AI has many advantages and benefits that make our lives easier and better, there are alternatives to it.

Generative AI has a number of advantages, such as increased efficiency when performing tedious and repetitive tasks, faster decision making, an increase in innovation, easier translations of languages, assistance in scientific research and discovery and assistance in health and medical fields. An article released by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) discussed the benefits of generative AI in relation to healthcare.

“In clinical settings, Gen AI supports the creation of customized treatment plans, generation of synthetic data, analysis of medical images, nursing workflow management, risk prediction, pandemic preparedness and population health management,” according to the NLM. “By automating administrative tasks such as medical documentations, Gen AI has the potential to reduce clinician burnout, freeing more time for direct patient care.”

One of the reasons that AI has such a huge environmental impact is because it’s available to so many people with basically no restrictions. If you have a device, you can open ChatGPT and begin using generative AI. Instead of focusing on removing generative AI completely, it might be beneficial to consider how restricting access to it would help both the environment and organizations and facilities that need it. Essentially, by removing the easy access that every device owner has to generative AI, fewer data centers would be needed to accommodate for the amount of people trying to use AI. This way, people in professions like medicine and healthcare can still use the benefits of AI for their practice and for the health of others, but not as much energy is needed for data centers since fewer people would be using AI.

Generative AI has benefits that we run on. It would be hurtful to society if we just straight up removed it. However, by restricting access to it and only allowing certain professions to use it for essential purposes, the environmental impact generative AI has would not be as extreme. We don’t need to be asking ChatGPT to write an email for us, generate pointless pictures and make dumb videos. Instead, think about the environment that we’re living in and how we should be taking care of it. I’d love to say that not using generative AI is easy, but the truth is we are so used to it. However, maybe the next time you open ChatGPT, you’ll think about the environment that you could save by not using it. Then we’d be taking steps in the right direction.