It is dark and gloomy in your bedroom, and the dreary 11:59 p.m. GST deadline is hanging over you like a noose. Your fingers move at an expeditiously unhuman rate as you attempt to complete the essay, response paper, or program — except it is not you of course.

It is our beloved lord and saviour ChatGPT (or for some: Perplexity Pro).

I do not blame you — life as a student is not easy to navigate, and there are some deadlines that seem to sneak past us. Therefore, we may have to employ resources that are academically unbecoming to save us from a late assignment.

However, did you know that is the reason penguins are losing their homes?

Did you know that each prompt you query on ChatGPT produces approximately 4.32 grams of CO2? Which means that it generates 8.4 tons of CO2 annually. This staggering amount directly impacts many habitats and environments that both humans and animals reside in. For some people, these numbers will mean nothing, therefore I will put this into perspective. Making 20-50 queries is the equivalent of consuming 500ml of water. Now imagine you are inputting the same number of queries every seven days of the week, every month, etc… You are draining water from the planet.

But where does this water go?

The information we feed ChatGPT is stored in data centers that use water to extract heat from overhearing PC components — however, it is not just ChatGPT that has done this. Google and other search engines also use data centers, which take in a frightening amount of water at a speedy rate. As a matter of fact, a study done by the University of California has revealed to us that Microsoft actually had used around 700,000 liters of water during the process of training ChatGPT 3 in the data centers. Google has also been consistently extracting water from the planet as well, as the study lets us know that its Data Centers directly took 29 billion liters in 2023. However, though Google has been damaging the environment in several ways for several years, the introduction of generative AI models such as ChatGPT, which require computational power in greater magnitudes than search engines, has exacerbated the grave issue of water waste and consumption.

This does not mean that water will run out of the planet — the water cycle ensures that water will always be present. However, what could and is already changing is people’s accessibility to water.

So what can we do about this?

We cannot suggest completely cutting out ChatGPT from our lives, as it is now well-integrated, and we are dependent on it. However, we can aim to reduce the number of prompts we make by not asking ChatGPT unnecessary queries, knowing that we would be able to accomplish it ourselves in less than five minutes. Additionally, we can switch to more eco-friendly search engines such as Ecosia. Though this may be challenging to implement for some people as we are accustomed to Google (I myself am a Google Calendar warrior), it can be handy to begin implementing.

Though there is little we can do to the overall cause, reducing our quotidian intake of generative AI can help us reclaim some of the independence we had previously. When was the last time you crafted an email or wrote a thesis without the aid of generative AI?

Considering the significant impact something so casually integrated into our lives has on the environment, I hope you realize this effect and start educating yourself on the consequences of such AI inventions designed for convenience. It is time to rethink our digital habits before greater damage is done. Every query counts.