With school starting back up, it’s only a matter of time until the piles of unfinished homework stack up. Papers you don’t know how to start, math questions you can’t even begin to understand, chemical equations you can’t balance, and cell structures that seem impossibly small. Like any other student, you race for AI, the most powerful tool at your fingertips. You get your answer in seconds, it's easy, it's addictive, and it's destroying our planet. 

‍

With the rapid spread of AI, its benefits have been overwhelmingly presented to us, but the harms to the environment are often ignored. ChatGPT, the most used AI chatbot, which we are all familiar with, is one of the top emitters. 

‍

Now, how can AI and chatbots like ChatGPT even be bad? They’re online after all? Well, the truth is that to support the extreme data centres, servers require a large amount of water to keep machinery cool, typically freshwater – a source currently depleting. In the training of ChatGPT-3, OpenAI’s third version, Microsoft servers used roughly 700,000 litres of freshwater in cooling. 

‍

Not only do ChatGPT data centres use copious amounts of freshwater, they also emit around 8.4 tons of carbon dioxide per year into our atmosphere, speeding up climate change.

‍

But this is the company's usage, so how do you contribute? Say you were using it to help with your math questions. After around twenty to forty prompts, you have used a 500ml bottle of freshwater (the size of an average plastic bottle). So if you used it as a tool for your homework every single day, imagine how much water you would have wasted, let alone the emissions of carbon dioxide?

‍

Well, this is all great news that AI companies like ChatGPT have now been outed for their extreme strain on the environment, but what are students like me and you supposed to use now? We can’t just abruptly withdraw; that is completely unreasonable, and AI does have several benefits. We are living in the new age where technology is becoming ubiquitous, and now AI is too. It is extreme to expect that we can all stop using this powerful tool, so instead, we need to grasp its effects and learn which tools can be more sustainable.

‍

First,we can cut off our use of ChatGPT completely and opt for more sustainable AI chatbots, like Google Gemini, Claude AI, and the best one, Deepseek AI. While changing programs is great, it is also best to limit our use and only use it when we are completely stumped on whatever sinusoidal functions are.

‍

In conclusion, it is imminent that everyone will use AI. So with our knowledge, let’s reach for alternatives that are one step ahead. Working together, we can stop giving large companies that don’t stress about emissions and water waste attention. And push for legislation that presses AI companies to create sustainable futures for development; to start, you can go to Change.org to find petitions related to the cause.

‍

‍

References

McLean, Sophie. “The Environmental Impact of ChatGPT | Earth.org.” Earth.org, 28 Apr. 2023, earth.org/environmental-impact-chatgpt/. Accessed 1 Sept. 2025.

“Best Alternatives for ChatGPT & Environment Impact 2025.” Byteplus.com, 2025, www.byteplus.com/en/topic/540556?title=best-alternatives-for-chatgpt-environment-impact. Accessed 1 Sept. 2025.

‍