Yesterday I got it in my head to research the environmental impact of using AI, and surprise surprise…the biggest consumption of energy (and therefore water) when it comes to AI is found in the training and development happening in the background that you or I as individual users ***do not control.***

Since I used AI (in this case, Perplexity) to start this research, obviously I have some ways to go to validate the info. But it brings me back to something I’ve already said: Why don’t these companies…worth BILLIONS with a B…invest more in innovating around the environmental impact of their products and not act like me saying “please” and “thank you” to an AI is “part of the problem?”

Two things can be true: Individual action matters. AND systems changing will have so much more impact, and we need systems change.