This month we saw wildfires blaze through Los Angeles, CA destroying homes, uprooting citizens and erasing beloved buildings and memories in minutes. It seems that every few months there is another natural disaster, each scarier than the last. Our planet is sending us an SOS. Unfortunately, the message is being lost in the commotion, silenced by our newfound obsession with AI and our need for convenience. We must stop ignoring the environmental implications of AI and rethink how often and why we use it.

As a nation, we are becoming more lazy and more self-serving. We choose the easiest way to do everything; the newest and most dire example being AI. We can no longer be bothered to complete simple tasks like drafting an email, so instead, we turn to technology that expends energy and water while emitting carbon dioxide.

Admittedly, I only recently became aware of the environmental effects of AI. But I’m not alone in my delayed discovery. Most people assume AI is like any other search engine, but that is far from the truth.

According to Goldman Sachs, on average, a ChatGPT query needs 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search. Consequently, these computers generate heat, just like your computer, but at extreme levels. To combat this, the centers use cooling towers which employ water in its process.

A study by the Washington Post and researchers at the University of California found that a single 100-word email from an AI chatbot, specifically GPT-4, uses about 18 ounces of water to produce.

This presents a problem as water is already a limited resource. According to AP News, in July 2022, the month before OpenAI said it completed its training of GPT-4, they reported that their data centers in Iowa used 6 percent of all the surrounding districts’ water supply, totalling around 11.5 million gallons of water.

These facts should raise concerns, especially for people in our community, as New Jersey suffered drought-like conditions this past year. Who knew that asking ChatGPT to do your homework could have actually been contributing to the drought?

AI undeniably makes our current lives easier; it allows us to spend less time thinking, and more time doing. The damage that it causes, however, is going unnoticed. We are substituting substantial environmental changes for instant gratification.

How much longer can we send our prayers and donations to the affected citizens in California, while ignoring the root of the problem?  We are so uninterested in putting extra effort into our daily lives that we are willing to risk the destruction of entire towns in the process. It is much more tedious to write an essay without the help of AI than rebuild an entire home, right?

Many of you, before reading this article, could have hid behind a lack of knowledge. If you didn’t know that AI was bad for the environment and you continued to use it, you’re not a bad person, you’re just ill-informed. But, information is power.

We cannot count on large corporations to choose our planet over profit. So, each person must decide for themselves whether current convenience is more important than the livelihood of our future generations. We can no longer be comfortable in complacency; our climate depends on it.