In just a few years, AI has gone from a fringe technology to an all-pervading tool used by 78% of organizations and businesses, as reported in 2024, up from 55% in 2023. The real question is no longer whether we should adopt it, but how we will adapt to it.
Although artificial intelligence (AI) is being promoted as a savior for growing environmental challenges, such an immense jump into the world of generative technology in public usage, such as schools, leaves room for many to speculate if the positives really outweigh the negatives of innovations with AI.
According to the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Fifth National Climate Assessment from fall 2023, the United States is warming faster than the rest of the world, and many American companies are working to utilize safe usage of AI within their businesses.
Microsoft is one of these corporations, as their use of AI in order to monitor the health of the planet with their project, AI for Earth, is expanding rapidly. It allows researchers to use Microsoft AI’s planetary computer for the purpose of environmental sustainability studies, with an allocated $50 million budget for their program. They’re also taking advantage of AI for educational purposes, with Microsoft 365 AI being marketed towards teachers to help produce lesson plans and accelerate learning.
As schools across the country begin to implement AI, such as automated grading systems, chatbots, and adaptive learning software for students, into their classrooms, all of which we use here at Granite Bay, many argue that it is an efficient and ethical use of AI assistance, as it helps lighten the grading load for teachers. Yet in practice, the risk of reducing teachers to mere supervisors and students to data points grows exponentially as algorithms encourage students to outsource their ideas and thoughts, instead of relying on their own critical thinking skills, which are strengthened through usage.
Unchecked growth of AI in the classroom and companies rushing to push for the implementation of these technologies should be a cause for slowing down. Not necessarily abandoning AI, but regulating and holding tech giants accountable for their “green solutions.”
Casual utilization of AI for assignments, general queries and generating pictures poses a far greater risk to the planet than one would guess as they push the “generate” button. The amount of electricity used when engaging with easily accessible AI programs such as ChatGPT, Grammarly and Google Gemini is often forgotten, while research shows using generative AI consumes energy at around four to five times more than the rate of a normal search engine application.
A 2023 MIT study suggests that using AI to generate a singular photo uses as much energy as it takes to fully charge your smartphone. Now, just imagine how many times you’ve generated a picture for fun or asked ChatGPT to answer a question with no real need for it to be answered.
Technology use in K-12 schools has risen with widespread iPad and computer adoption, and growing reliance on AI tools is driving greater demand for local data centers to support energy needs. Unfortunately, data centers that are used to train even the simplest AI models contribute to significant influxes in an area’s carbon footprint. This leads to large amounts of fossil fuels being used as well, also increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Artificial intelligence is also harmful to water consumption in the U.S. The warehouses that programs, such as ChatGPT, use to train and run their software are massive and often filled with hundreds of overheated computers. Due to the intense heat created by these machines, water-based cooling systems have been used, which utilize cold liquids to draw heat away from the computers.
Because the salt water of our oceans is too corrosive to the infrastructure used in these cooling networks, companies are forced to use freshwater, using direct-to-chip (DTC) and immersion cooling systems to effectuate proper chilling. Lamentably, just in 2025, Texas used just short of 50 billion gallons of water for companies such as Microsoft, while the state is in the middle of an intense drought.
Ultimately, as artificial intelligence continues to wind itself into education and climate initiatives, it is necessary to ask if the shiny promises of efficiency and the sheen of innovation truly outweigh the rapidly growing environmental toll. It’s always worth asking whether we are creating more problems than we solve, both in schools and in safeguarding our planet, because convenience today shouldn’t come at the cost of tomorrow.
For more information, please visit the 2025 Artificial Intelligence Index Report
