As sophomore Jaslynn Lee opens ChatGPT, she inserts a photo of her homework, asking the chatbot to create an answer key.
This is just one of many ways Palo Alto High School students are using artificial intelligence every day. However, most don’t realize a single query takes 16 ounces of water to produce an answer.
In the blink of an eye, AI extensions have seamlessly trickled their way into our lives. From AI therapists to personalized AI boyfriends, society is venturing further into a future powered by technology. AI, however, has a higher price than just buying raw materials: it’s also taking a toll on our environment.
Every time Generative AI like Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT are used, 2.9 watt-hours of electricity are used, almost ten times as much energy as a simple Google search, according to Goldman Sachs investment bank.
Additionally, the same source predicts that, by 2030, demand for power from data centers will increase by 160%, while the share of energy consumed by data centers will rise from 1% to 4% of the world’s energy consumption.
Large-scale technology investments have led corporations, such as Microsoft, to explore other options to match the surge in energy required to train new AI models.
On Sept. 20., Microsoft signed a power deal to resurrect an old nuclear power plant. An article from Reuters states that “power from the plant would be used to offset Microsoft’s data center electricity use.”
With Generative AI’s extreme energy cost, limiting the amount of data centers may become crucial to protecting the planet.
According to Coresite, there are over 2,700 data centers in the United States. These data centers span rows and rows of machines processing information, and large quantities of electricity are required to keep the servers running.
Junior David Wu, president of the Paly AI Club, said that generative AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini are extremely computationally intensive.
“You need to run alot of operations in order to actually run these generative models, and that requires computationally intensive chips such as GPUs [Graphic Processing Units],” Wu said.
Water usage is also a huge issue when it comes to maintaining data centers. Search engine companies have reported massive jumps in their water consumption, mainly due to AI. Water Technologies reported that Microsoft’s latest environment report shows a 34% increase in water consumption from 2021 to 2022 due to the public release of AI chatbots.
In 2022, Google reported they used 5.6 billion gallons of water. That is the equivalent of 8,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The main reason data centers use so much water is to keep temperatures in check by flowing cold water in pipes through a liquid cooling system. Heat generated by machines is absorbed by the water and transferred into the air by a radiator.
Sreekanth Gopi, the founder of an AI-powered mental wellness company called Neuroheart, explained how AI can have both negative and positive impacts on the world.
“I would say there is no need to control the positive AI application developments [healthcare, data analysis, innovation], because AI is evolving and the energy required to train it will reduce,” Gopi said. “For three, four years, we will have these large issues and then it will go down.”
On the other hand, AI has the potential to accelerate climate change.
“Electronic wastage is a huge issue,” Gopi said. “We will use it [microchips] for maybe a year then the new models come out and the old chips go to waste.”
AI is becoming a main contributor to e-waste and climate change, but people continue to use AI because it can provide aid with schoolwork. Paly sophomore Thais Gonzales uses AI on a daily basis to take notes in class.
“It’s just nice to know that it’s there if I take bad notes that aren’t very legible,” Gonzales said.
As innovation in the AI field skyrockets, schools have seen the advantages of giving students equal access to AI versus
spending time trying to restrict its usage. Google Gemini 13+ is enabled for all students in their Palo Alto Unified School District accounts.
This decision contributes to the PAUSD Promise goal of fostering innovation and utilizing technology to enhance student learning.
The PAUSD shared in a ParentSquare email how “AI can potentially be a powerful tool in enhancing student learning and making learning more accessible. We will continue to explore its potential benefits in classrooms.”
Clearly, artificial intelligence is a double edged sword due to the negative and positive impacts it has on our society. The president of the Paly Environmental Service Club, Nathan Lee, says he is concerned at the lack of effort to mitigate climate change.
“People only talk about what creates it [climate change], but really we should be talking about helping to prevent it,” Lee said.
Considering many Paly students use ChatGPT as an everyday tool, there are numerous ways students can take responsibility to offset their carbon footprint.
“There are so many different ways you can get involved in protecting the environment,” Lee said. “When you leave the
room, turn off the lights. Save water and be conservation minded.”
