May 25, 2026 by Kayla Magnus (‘29)
What is AI?
As we all know, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a prominent presence in almost all of our lives. Whether it’s asking random questions, using it to help you study, or even just scrolling upon an AI generated image or video on social media, it has no doubt infiltrated its way into the life of humans around the world. Obviously, it’s an incredible invention, you type something into a text box and seconds later you can have a full essay written, a detailed video created, and so much more. Bill Gates has even said that Gen AI is the most revolutionary innovation since the graphical user interface (the mouse, desktop, and icons). But like everything, it has its drawbacks. Every step we take in this direction is lessening the ability and necessity for humans to understand how technology works and eliminating our need to think and be creative, just like the car eliminated our need to walk.
Prior to the graphical user interface, every person using a computer had to know what command to type in if they wanted to navigate the screen at all. Then all of a sudden, one click is equivalent to a whole string of code. And I can guarantee almost all people under the age of forty will not know a single command that would’ve needed to be written years ago. AI took this a step further, and now humans don’t even need to know how to use many of the appliances on the computer. You can type into GPT “Write me the code for Clever” or, “Make me an excel spreadsheet with this data” and within seconds you’ll have it, without needing to know how to make it yourself. This is definitely faster, but it’s a little scary to know that a computer knows more than yourself. Many people across social media and new platforms have begun to pick apart this idea, especially all AI’s negative impacts on our world, like its extreme use of water.
Water usage
Recently, there have been many raised concerns about the amount of water being used in data center operations. In a nutshell, huge data centers all over the world used to power the internet, TikTok and Instagram use for example, get extremely hot, and then need a tremendous amount of water to cool them down. With the addition of AI, the amount of data centers in use and in turn the amount of water being used has increased immensely. This is concerning because the amount of freshwater on earth is already limited at only 2.5% of water on the planet. Saltwater can’t be used to cool these data centers because it’s highly corrosive. According to Ceres.org “In the coming years, annual water use associated with data center electricity consumption is expected to increase by 400%, from an estimated 2.9 billion gallons to over 14.5 billion gallons” According to the EESI “Approximately 80% of the water (typically freshwater) withdrawn by data centers evaporates, with the remaining water discharged to municipal wastewater facilities” This means that 80% of this water is being returned to its source, but a full 20% is dumped into cities, infiltrating groundwater after being poured over and an abundance of chemicals and heavy metals. This is terrible for the health of the biosphere. The amount of water used to cool data centers is becoming increasingly concerning as more and more people continue to use AI everyday.
Why this is, and will continue to be an enduring issue
Recently this has become a concern of people all over the internet and has been blowing up on social media. And this is completely valid: it is a real concern and has every right to be gaining so much attention, especially because of AI’s growing influence on our lives. But, every person who watches a video concerning AI water usage is also contributing to the amount of water being used. Every video watched, question asked to google, or any use of the internet ever is being fueled by these data centers. It has always been an issue and is just now being brought to attention because of the leap it’s taken since the innovation of AI. So yes, AI has increased the amount of water used immensely, but if we want to continue having phones and the internet, freshwater consumption is going to be an issue.
What can be done?
So, what can we do about this? There are two parts to this: dealing with the toxic runoff, and dealing with the freshwater depletion. Solely concerning water consumption, one course of action is figuring out ways to use salt water for cooling which would require desalination. The thing is though, desalination is very expensive and inefficient at the moment, which makes it unappealing to corporations. Even if the innovations occurred to make desalination an easier process, this would not solve the toxic runoff issue. To deal with that, we would need further innovations around dealing with contaminated water. If these innovations could be brought to life, the use of the internet and furthermore AI could become a much greener process. Artificial Intelligence is a growing force in society as well as science right now, but we need to make sure it is used wisely to protect our environment as much as possible until a better solution is provided.
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