A single ChatGPT question uses ten times as much electricity as a regular Google search. Fun fact: The use of ChatGPT is entirely voluntary. There are zero legitimate reasons to be using it. We are doing this to ourselves.
Ironically, my first Google search to do my research for this column gave me an AI overview. It is obvious enough that artificial intelligence has seeped into every aspect of our daily lives. Everybody wants to join in on this fancy new technology, and they all want a piece of the pie — not that they seem to care about the repercussions these slices will bring.
Elon Musk’s repulsive chatbot Grok on X is the poster child of this epidemic. Grok is run by a giant supercomputer known as Colossus, whose construction began in 2024, developed by Musk’s company xAI. Colossus is based in Memphis, Tennessee, and its construction was intentionally hidden from nearby residents until the process had already begun.
Colossus’ data center is not very far from the small community of Boxtown, an African American neighborhood founded in the 1860s, with not much wealth to go around — certainly not enough to financially fight back against the soullessly ambition-obsessed figure of Musk and his supercomputers.
For a supercomputer as large as Colossus, roughly the length of 13 football fields, an obscene amount of power is required to keep it running. 35 gas turbines — 20 of which are unpermitted — that generate the amount of electricity a full power-plant could sustain are up and running in southern Memphis with zero thought given to the surrounding communities.
A Boxtown resident had said in TIME’s article about the oppressive, polluted air: “It felt like my chest was caving in.”
The existence of data centers is another huge concern. These are bundles of computers kept in one location that hold large amounts of processing power intended to support artificial intelligence. In Texas, which is already suffering from a water crisis, AI data centers are swallowing millions and millions of gallons of water. This water is not recycled; the cooling water evaporates. It is not reused by Texas residents, who already have restrictions placed upon them to encourage conservation — unlike these data centers, which go unregulated.
It’s ridiculous that we have decided to use generative AI as a brain. The queries that people are plugging into AI are nothing short of inane. You know what you could do to answer those questions instead? Ask your dad. Reddit probably answered it already in 2018. Instead of being misinformed by ChatGPT, you could ask your best friend to do that for you. Literally ask anything else.
Now, some people will make an argument that some benefit can be reaped from the use of generative AI. It can do basic things like summarizing an article or giving you tips for your calculus exam, but this is entirely short-term, and a good chunk of the time, the information isn’t even correct.
I find it hard to believe that something could be regarded as the next best thing if it harms the people it’s meant to benefit. Generative AI is damaging communities and discouraging creativity and critical thinking — where is the good? Or more accurately, is there any good at all?
Billionaires like Musk have an answer: It’s more money in their pockets. This does nothing for people like me and you.
Many say that AI, especially generative AI, is our future; they argue there is no other option but to indulge this new technology, and we as a society are going to fully integrate it within the coming years. If this is true, we must find an eco-friendly way to go about it. As it is right now, AI is a waste of energy and a regurgitation of pre-existing work. We need to do better.
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Sam is a freshman from Peachtree City, Georgia. She is majoring in English and started with The Plainsman in fall 2025.
