The headline above was generated by an Artificial Intelligence chatbot in GPT-4. The 28 word response used more than a quarter of a water bottle to cool the server and the energy used to generate this response is equivalent to powering 3 LED light bulbs for over an hour, according to a statistic developed by The Washington Post. Students have heard all of the moral dilemmas of AI, but most don’t know that their intellectual inaction is also horrible for the planet. 

AI is a pit that we’re throwing vast amounts of money and resources into; nothing is  going to come back out of the pit to return the investment. 

GPU– used to develop AI models– is said to reach $1 trillion in value by 2030 according to William Dally in Nature’s article Fixing AI’s energy crisis. This investment would be so much more rewarding if it were invested in the planet. Investments into minimizing greenhouse gas emissions would save the planet. 

According to Yale School of The Environment, AI is using fossil fuels in order to power the servers. They estimate that by 2026 AI could occupy up to four percent of the annual global energy usage. These fossil fuels are killing the planet. Instead of investing in a product that essentially steals others’ work, investment could be made in fighting climate change.

The Environmental Defense Fund said that just helping nations at risk due to climate change could cost upwards of $2.4 trillion. 

The world’s biggest investors are choosing to invest in a dead-end technology as opposed to saving the planet for the next generations who are going to be living on a planet that is no longer habitable.  

President Trump is also supporting AI— setting aside resources and infrastructure in order to support the growing AI market. In order to avoid having to go through Congress for the funds, President Trump is going to use many emergency declarations. He claims that being behind in AI development compared to China is an emergency. His declarations are protecting investors who are planning to invest $500 billion into AI. This amount of money could put a dent in preventing further climate change.

The fossil fuels are not the only resource being wasted. Due to AI needing a lot of energy to be powered, heat is generated. This heat is cooled with another one of earth’s essential resources. According to The Washington Post if 1 in 10 American workers generates a 100 word email once a week for a year, it would need 435,235,476 liters of water. That is equivalent to all the water used by every home in Rhode Island For 1.5 days.

Despite the vast amount of funds being put into AI, it is still often inaccurate. Even the biggest tech company in the world– Apple– is hopping on the AI bandwagon to nowhere. “Apple Intelligence,” their AI feature was made available to many new model iPhone users on Oct. 28. 2024, was recently taken down due to incorrect reports of news to many users. According to BBC’s article Apple suspends error-strewn AI generated news alerts, Apple Intelligence made numerous errors about basic facts. 

Given the residual damage of AI, investing precious resources is unwise.