Artificial Intelligence, more commonly known as AI, is so easily accessible today that pressing a single button on a phone pulls a program up. 

From self-driving cars to freakishly identical replicas of humans, AI is arguably one of the biggest technological advances that society has made recently. It is not surprising that, with the growing computer science scene, society continues to expand on and improve AI programs. In fact, most recently, tech companies have developed robots capable of learning through the observation of human actions.

“I feel like it’s the next big step in technology,” junior Jude Grout said. “It’s going to change a lot, and it’s going to improve a lot of things. It allows a lot of meaningless tasks to be done automatically instead of taking hours.”

While these advancements are well known, less well known are the environmental impacts that both the usage and development of Artificial Intelligence poses a multitude of environmental threats as well. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, AI infrastructure across the globe are set to consume six times more water than the country of Denmark, whose population is six million. The water is used for cooling down the systems. Not only that, but the databases and warehouses that store this type of tech typically rely on rare elements and minerals that are usually mined in an unsustainable manner. 

“I was reading some research articles, I think from Forbes magazine and some other places, and it was talking about how much water consumption it takes to basically cool off the servers and the storage facilities for AI,” instructor Laura Messier said. “I realized there was going to be at some point a water shortage, and there already is in some places. I asked myself ‘what am I getting from AI?’ and ‘is that worth the water consumption that it takes per search?’”

Messier, an English teacher, was brainstorming with her students when a few brought up the environmental crises that AI contributed to. As a parent, Messier expressed her worries about what the world will look like for future generations.

“I’m kind of terrified,” Messier said. “If we continue to use water to cool down these servers for menial tasks that we could be doing ourselves, and we’re just choosing not to do them, I worry about what that’s going to look like for my daughter and her kids and the entirety of mankind.”

Recently brought to America’s senate was bill 3732, otherwise known as the Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act of 2024. This bill, introduced on February 1st, 2024, “requires the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to carry out a study on the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence.” The bill also requires the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to put together a group of experts to examine and deal with said environmental impacts. Some East students have ideas for how to make AI more sustainable.

“Maybe we can have smaller systems or different methods of cooling them,” Grout said. “Maybe we could also recycle the water–usually, if you mix it with certain chemicals, you could. Then you’d only need to refill it every few years, which I imagine would make it a lot more efficient.”

That is not to say that Artificial Intelligence has not made any positive impacts. AI continues to assist people all around the globe, from routing out the quickest ways to destinations on apps like Google Maps, to performing tasks as simple as answering a few math problems. 

“I use AI for a lot of things, but mostly school related,” Grout said. “I mostly use it for grammar checking my essays. I paste it in, ask it to tell me what to improve, and then I just use that to further improve my writing.”

It is important for the community and general public to be aware of the impacts that they are making with every search. However, it does not mean that they should dwell on it. 

 “At first, I felt guilty having used it quite a bit in the last two years. But then it also made me reflective. What took me five minutes is not worth tens of thousands of gallons of water in the future. Now that I know, I’ll just do better,” Messier said.