I would like to start this with a message to AI... I love you (please don't hurt me).
For real though, I think that AI as an advancement is something to be excited about, and let’s face it, has been inevitable for a while now. I am, however, less of a fan of intellectual property theft, breaches of data privacy, and quiet environmental disasters.
The latter hasn't had much attention amongst the whirlwind of mainstream media coverage surrounding AI, but it's having an enormous impact on our planet and the public must be aware of the impacts of their AI usage.
So, what's going on?
You know when your laptop starts sounding like a plane and feeling like an oven when you have 100 tabs open? The same kind of thing happens in data centres on a massive scale.
Data centres globally store an inconceivable amount of information on behalf of different companies like Meta, Google, and so on.
Storing that information requires a lot of energy which subsequently creates a lot of heat. This can be detrimental to the data, and so to protect it, there is a need for a cooling system.
Water has been the preferred cooling system for a long time, and the industry has received its fair share of scrutiny for its water use. More recently though, AI has grown exponentially and so have needs for storage and cooling as a result.
One Google search in 2010 used 1 millilitre of water.
20-50 questions on Chat GPT in 2024 uses 500 millilitres of water...
As we often see with technological advancements, the laws governing this technology are light-years behind. Until the law catches up, we need transparency from tech companies so we can be aware of and monitor the environmental impacts of our AI usage.
The Impact
Water should be a fundamental human right, but for many, it is still a privilege. The UN found that at least 50% of the world's population experiences water stress for at least a month each year, and climate change is rapidly exacerbating the problem. UNICEF says around 74% of all natural disasters between 2001 and 2018 were water-related (floods and droughts).
Water shortages and climate impacts disproportionately affect people of colour, in particular women and girls. However, these groups most impacted are excluded from conversations surrounding big tech’s water usage, leading to the exploitation of these communities and the lands they inhabit.
Last year, Uruguay suffered the worst drought the country had seen in over 70 years, and for many citizens, running out of water was a very real possibility. The situation became so dire that authorities had to resort to mixing salt water with the public's drinking supply.
Simultaneously, Google announced its plan to buy 72 acres of land in Uruguay to build a new data centre. This facility would be dependent on the country's dwindling resource – yep, you guessed it… their water.
Protests erupted throughout the country in early 2023, calling not just on their government to preserve such a precious and fundamental resource, but also to Google, who quite frankly know better.
In November 2023, Google announced it would go ahead regardless. It is estimated that the project will extract 2 million litres of water a day. In a country already struggling to manage water access, those figures are nothing short of devastating.
Students vs AI
It’s no secret that since the introduction of Chat GPT, students from all walks of life have befriended its abilities. It makes sense as to why… Generative AI can speed up writing an assignment, write usable code, calculate grades and more.
The growing use of the software however is not accompanied by educational understandings of its impacts. We ran a poll on Vertigo’s Instagram to gauge how UTS students use AI. The results showed that:
72% of UTS students admitted to having used AI in their studies, 56% were encouraged to do so in class by their tutors, while 60% were not confident that they were fully aware of the environmental impacts it imposes.
The 41 participants of the survey also disclosed how many prompts they generally give to AI in one use for study. Their prompting alone would require a combined 25,000 millilitres of water as a cooling mechanism, and this is just 0.09% of UTS’s student community.
So, where do we go from here?
There is hope.
Many tech companies are pledging to restore more water than they take by the end of the decade, Google leading the move by pledging to replenish 120% of the water they use by 2030. Additionally, public scrutiny has been fueling conversations around the use of alternate cooling systems like air conditioning or salt water instead of fresh water supplies.
While we wait to see how the industry will innovate, the best thing we can do is stay educated, spread awareness and be conscious of our use of AI. Before turning to AI, see if you can find what you’re looking for on a search bar, better yet – one that doesn't use AI like Firefox, Vivaldi or DuckDuckGo.
Let your friends know the impacts of Generative AI, email your MPs asking for AI reform that includes minimal water usage from tech companies, and overall, stay active in your research decisions.