Fuel your brains: stop using AI
Not only is Artificial Intelligence (AI) bad for the earth, it is also bad for you. Start to exercise the muscle that is your brain, and instead of turning to ChatGPT, utilize your critical thinking skills to solve your own problems.
Photo courtesy of Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons
You are probably constantly seeing the phrase “fuel your bodies” everywhere. Often, it refers to the way that we fuel our bodies, whether that be from the foods we eat or the exercise we partake in. But what about the way we fuel our minds?
In today’s world, we live in a society that runs on instant gratification, which has led to a rise in popularity of Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms such as ChatGPT. It is a bit insane to realize that a majority of society would rather take the easy route by asking AI simple questions rather than to actually think through a problem and work out an answer.
Our brains need to be exercised just as much as our bodies do. Every time you rely on AI to answer a simple question for you, you should be aware of the consequences it will have on your long-term knowledge recall and abilities. There have been numerous studies and articles finding that AI usage harms critical thinking skills. Duke Center for Teaching and Learning reports, “While AI enables rapid data analysis at an unprecedented speed and scale, overreliance on AI can erode an individual’s critical thinking skills.”
The fact that many students are relying on AI to complete their coursework for them is especially concerning. I recently saw a video on social media of a medical student who was using AI to do homework and quizzes for her anatomy class; I was absolutely shocked and appalled. The fact that people are using AI platforms to learn and pass classes in their major is extremely worrisome and I do not understand how more people do not see issues with this.
Furthermore, I have been around many people who either have the ChatGPT app downloaded or are constantly using the site. I have witnessed people use it for absolutely ridiculous reasons such as making lists, solving simple math problems, and answering basic critical thinking questions. All of these things can be either done by yourself or answered through a regular Google search—why do we need to use AI?
It may seem silly to be so fixated on AI use, but when you look into the environmental impacts, it puts everything into perspective. The National Educational Association reported the following statistics: “A single generative AI text query consumes energy at four or five times the magnitude of a typical search engine request. Generating a single image using AI consumes the same amount of energy as charging a phone to full power. Training one large AI model consumes nearly five times the lifetime emissions of the average American car. Data centers—giant warehouses filled with endless rows of computer servers that are continuously working to complete tasks—used 4 percent of total U.S. electricity in 2023, and that number is expected to jump 7-12 percent in the next three years alone.”
If you can read the above statistics and feel that your AI usage is justified, that is extremely sad and disheartening. There are positive benefits of AI and I am sure that it does make life easier, but the cost of making your life easier is irreversible damage to both the environment and your mind. Every time you use AI, you are destroying your brain and training it to stop thinking critically. There is no way to sustainably use AI—either environmentally or developmentally. Next time you go to type in a question into an AI platform, think about it first; think about how you can solve the question without AI and how if you do use AI, what it will do to the earth and your brain.