This post was updated Jan. 26 at 3:55 p.m.

Green in the Blue and Gold is a series created by Angelina Alkhouri, an Opinion columnist and a third-year human biology and society student. She will write about sustainability pitfalls at UCLA and the greater Los Angeles community, along with the consequences of choosing to ignore them. She will propose ways to strengthen commitments to sustainability as students and as a university. Bruins who have interest in or experience with the topic are welcome to submit op-eds or letters to the editor to be published as part of this series to represent the many facets of campus sustainability.

As we race towards a world fraught with electronic waste and soaring carbon footprints, one of the biggest digital environmental nightmares is Artificial Intelligence.

AI is energy and resource intensive due to data storage and processing. When users submit a question into ChatGPT, their computer connects to server farms — potentially across the world — that do the computation and send the response back.

Consumers should be aware of their own footprint and demand meaningful change from major tech firms. The lack of corporate action is compounded by silence around AI’s environmental impact.

Consumers need to demand transparency to pressure companies for reform and to build sustainability into systems. Furthermore, companies should collaborate with local stakeholders to build more sustainable AI policies.

Maintaining large AI servers means using drinking water to cool down machines and rare earth minerals to design faster microchips, said Ramesh Srinivasan, UCLA professor in the Department of Informational Studies and director of the UC Digital Cultures Lab.

Yet many students continue to use ChatGPT like it’s magic, unaware of environmental impacts.

“I don’t quite know exactly its environmental impact,” said Shelby McAlpin, a first-year biology student. “But I am a little bit concerned.”

It is not just the booming popularity of AI that has harmed the environment. Big tech has attempted to store as much data as possible and extract patterns to micro target us for content such as advertisements, which increases negative impacts, Srinivasan said.

More surveillance means more data, driving the expansion of energy-intensive infrastructure.

Knowing how AI systems work and store data seems out of the scope for consumers, McAlpin said.

“I think it could be beneficial for consumers to know a little bit more about what they’re using and what they’re participating in,” she added.

Consumer demand for AI has led major tech companies, such as Microsoft, to build more infrastructure and data centers, while increasing resource consumption, for example. Public awareness and scrutiny has diminished over the years, making this a critical moment to reexamine these systems while meaningful change is still possible.

Many other S&P 500 companies have missions tied to AI investments, but none of them address environmental issues in the context of AI, Srinivasan said. Even companies such as Anthropic that capitalize on being environmentally conscious do not address it, he added.

Policymakers almost never talk about how resource-intensive AI can be.

Only 21% of responding companies mention sustainability within their AI initiatives and many lack policy that addresses issues such as energy use and emissions, according to a S&P Global analysis.

“Their goal is to expand and increase in valuation no matter what,” Srinivasan said. “And some of them literally have mottos like ‘move fast and break things,’ in the case of Meta.”

AI has some advantages regarding productivity. This shortcut, however, takes away from human critical thinking, said Katelyn Dilbeck, a fourth-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student.

“I’ve just tried to decrease my use, but I don’t know if it’s a scary thing,” Dilbeck added. “It’s a very fast-growing thing that has implications that we don’t even know about.”

Treating environmental issues as an externality, as Srinivasan puts it, is only encouraged by presidential views on climate change.

“They don’t care,” Srinivasan said “The President has been very brazen about that. He said climate change is a hoax multiple times.”

The overall attitude is based on the illusion that long-term impacts are not directly related. Some people argue that since effects such as melting ice caps are not an immediate problem for our generation, these effects are not a problem worth addressing at all.

“I’m kind of scared of the future,” Dilbeck said. “I think we’re headed in a direction where we have a person who has the power to oversee these things and is completely disregarding environmental factors.”

These environmental issues displace harm on the most vulnerable people.

The UN reported that nearly four million Africans from the Sahel region have been displaced by conflict, hunger and climate change. Hundreds of thousands of schools and health facilities in the region have also been shut down.

Climate refugees are all around the planet, whether it’s those in the Sahel in Western Africa or those impacted by the hurricanes that have hit Houston, Srinivasan said.

There is potential to use AI for good if we collaborate with local stakeholders who know far more about environmental resources and can teach companies how to respectfully value Earth’s resources.

But a lack of environmental solutions to the promise of AI has considerable impacts. Future reactionary policy, if ever developed, will fail to make up for the mistakes made today.

By putting pressure on government officials and developing proactive policy, companies will be forced to prioritize sustainability and consider long term impacts on our environment.