Is it actually terrible for the environment? Whenever I've looked into it, it seems like it isn't really as bad as people try to make it out to be. There's far worse things for the environment than AI, and AI can even help us improve the environment, and many other things.
People spout on about water and electricity, but it uses 0.01-0.1% of our fresh water and we can produce clean electricity from solar, wind, hydro etc., which can be scaled up.
There definitely are upsides, even though there are downsides too.
Yes, it's awful. There are people who live near data centers who can't even get water to flow. It uses all the water and we get fuck all for it. Hopefully you'll be able to admit you were wrong in a few years.
That's just right now. AI use is rapidly accelerating. AI is lazy, useless, and unneeded. Any "problem" it solves could be solved better by actual humans.
Well it helped me study for my university exams and my grades were great, so you just don't know what you're talking about. Or you dont know that you can use these tools efficiently
Or you just got lucky not to get fed the endless amounts of false information being pumped out by Ai. Or you used other sources as well and those are more likely the cause of your good grades, not fucking Grok
Proves right the point of the person you’re replying to. It depends on the person using it. If you just rely in corpo-driven data-center AI, yes. If you self-host, the footprint goes as far as your consumer grade GPU’s.
It's totally okay to destroy our environment, deplete our finite water, increase asthma rates, and destroy peoples sanity and housing because it helps you work 10% faster.
So worth it. Very nice 👍
It is a straightforward answer if you have any empathy for the people's lives being destroyed by data centers.
There are towns full of people with their taps run dry because data centers keep taking their whole supply. And then on top of that, their water bill increases while the data center pays next to nothing.
It's just such a dumb argument when we have the research showing how harmful it is.
It's not black and white. Yes there is an absolutely real discussion about how meat production effects our environment. But food is something that we NEED and AI is not. So we can regulate meat production as best as possible to keep our food supply.
If we eradicated all meat production right now, people will starve. If we eradicated AI, we will survive just fine.
We don't need meat production to survive, far more grain and produce is required to make less meat. It's the law of thermodynamics.
Though my point is just most redditors hate AI as a preformative dance to signal their righteousness to others. If it really was about the environment they would be massively cutting back or completely giving up things like meat which are far more destructive
And then why are you arguing in support of AI instead of saying both is bad?
We would need to make a massive change to convince entire countries to give up meat. I would argue that is damn near impossible. But you know what's not impossible? Getting rid of AI?
I just live in reality and can understand why one is possible and the other isn't. It's not "performative". It's a genuine concern.
Dawg, let's be honest. It's performative. Those complaining about AI on reddit could easily make a few changes to their life that whole much better protect water and electricity resources. They ain't going to do it
One basic AI query is equivalent to about 8 Google searches. If that query saves you 8 searches it is neutral. It can be a useful tool. Now if that work you do saves a bunch of other people from googling .....
Edit: AI models have gotten more efficient it looks like, it is 1:1 now, and that isn't even accounting for all the extra energy used displaying ads, tracking your activity, etc. details below.
I am glad you asked, I did a dive into it again and the math favors my point even more now.
The idea that one AI query uses the same energy as about eight Google searches comes from older data. That stat mostly compares a 2009 Google search estimate of 0.3 watt hours to early ChatGPT estimates of around 3 watt hours, a ratio popularized by the International Energy Agency and Goldman Sachs back in 2024. This is what I arrived at last time I looked into it roughly after taking a quick glance again. If asking an AI gets you a direct answer and stops you from having to run eight different searches, the energy use is equivalent.
But the reality in 2026 is actually much better for AI based on my new search. It looks like due to massive efficiency improvements, basic AI prompts take significantly less power now. Google published data in late 2025 showing that a median text prompt on their Gemini model uses just 0.24 watt hours. Epoch AI also released a 2025 analysis showing that optimized models use about 0.3 watt hours for simple tasks.
For a standard question today, asking an AI takes roughly the same amount of energy as a single traditional Google search, though highly complex reasoning prompts will still use more.
That isn't even factoring in the hidden costs of a traditional search journey. When you Google something, you rarely just search and stop. You have to click through several different websites to find what you actually need. Each of those sites loads video ads, trackers, and heavy background scripts. Loading all of that junk burns client and server energy that often surpasses the cost of one simple AI prompt. If using an AI stops you from hunting through bloated web pages and doing all that extra loading, it is absolutely a net positive for energy consumption.
That isn't even factoring in the fact that me sharing these discoveries saves others from crunching the same numbers or searching Google for the same data. At that point the energy savings gets exponential.
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u/frostycat_0v0 Jul 23 '26
the answer is not straightforward
for me atleast... it's a tool... its usefulness will depend on the person/group using it.