AI tools like ChatGPT may feel invisible — just a few taps and you get answers in seconds. But experts are now warning that the environmental cost of these tools is far bigger than most people realise.
At first glance, the energy used to answer a single ChatGPT question may seem tiny, just a few grams of carbon dioxide (CO₂), a fraction of what an average American emits in a year, according to a report by Washington Post. But when you multiply that by the billions of queries sent every day around the world, the impact adds up fast.
Behind every AI response is a massive data center, and these consume huge amounts of electricity. In fact, some data centers now use more energy than entire cities. Power companies are already responding by extending the lives of coal plants and building new natural gas facilities just to keep up. Cooling these AI machines also uses fresh water, roughly one bottle’s worth for every 100 words ChatGPT writes.
So what can you do?
Experts aren’t asking people to stop using AI altogether. They suggest being more thoughtful about when and how we use it. “Use AI when it makes sense,” said Gudrun Socher, a computer science professor in Munich. “Don’t use it for everything.” For example, if you’re just checking a store’s hours or looking up a basic fact, a regular Google search uses about 10 times less energy than asking ChatGPT.
For more complex tasks like rewriting text, summarising or translating, AI may actually be more efficient than doing it manually, according to Bill Tomlinson, a professor at the University of California, Irvine. He explains that in some cases, using AI might reduce emissions by saving time and energy spent on laptops.
Still, Tomlinson admits there are other things to think about, like accuracy, originality and ethical concerns.
The bottom line is that AI isn’t free. It may not show up on your electricity bill, but it comes at a cost to the planet. So the next time you’re about to ask ChatGPT something simple, it might be worth pausing to ask yourself if there’s a cleaner way to get the answer.
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