AI Imagery is Eating the World

It’s true that generative AI has made it impossibly easier to make art, but does "easy" mean better?

The megalithic boom of AI-generated content has impacted every aspect of the internet. So much so that it has begun to spill out of the online sphere and onto the public, specifically our environment. From detrimental water and energy consumption to an alarming amount of waste entering our atmosphere, people’s inability to create with their own hands may lead to an unthinkable outcome regarding our planet’s limited resources.

AI Imagery & Wastefulness 101

All AI content is almost the same in terms of its wastefulness of our resources, but there is none so great as AI imagery. It takes around 0.1-2.0 kilowatt-hours (kWh) to make an AI-generated image, depending on the quality of the image.

Now, if you’re like me, you have no idea what these numbers mean, so let’s put it into perspective.

0.1 kWh is the energy consumed when having a 100 W lightbulb on for 10 hours, whereas 2.0 kWh is the energy consumed by your electric dishwasher. Creating a single image using AI amounts to leaving your lights on at night or doing some chores.

Imagine that, but a million times over, accounting for almost everyone on the planet who uses AI as a part of their daily lives.

As best put by Melissa Heikkilä in her article, Making an image with generative AI uses as much energy as charging your phone, explaining the findings of a study conducted by Hugging Face and Carnegie Mellon University: “Generating 1,000 images with a powerful AI model, such as Stable Diffusion XL, is responsible for roughly as much carbon dioxide as driving the equivalent of 4.1 miles in an average gasoline-powered car.”

As we drive cars, make coffee, charge our phones, and fly in planes, we continue to pollute our air and waste energy by adding to the waste we decide to generate through the use of AI.

Though it is not just air and energy we waste, but water too.

Quenching That AI Thirst

I’m sure the most common anti-AI argument you hear is that AI is wasting our water. That doesn’t mean anything to anyone when people think it is the same as leaving the tap on for a little too long.

Drinkable water is a precious thing for many reasons. It is something we need to live and, whether people know it or not, it is a delicacy.

There are many places without drinkable water, and soon there will be more with the demands of AI. The reason the most popular anti-AI argument is that AI wastes water is because it is so important.

Where does the water come from? How much are the data centers using? AI data centers aren’t just using any dirty water from rivers or underground lakes, but clean drinking water that we can be drinking.

A study from Cornell University puts this into perspective: “... published in Nature Sustainability, also revealed that unmitigated AI use would drain 731 to 1,125 million cubic meters of water per year – which equates to the annual household water usage of 6 to 10 million Americans (or the entire population of a small country, like Austria).”

That example was pulled from a list of not-so-fun facts published by Roma Dhanan. I implore you to browse through their list for yourself (the information is backed with links to the full studies).

After hearing all this, perhaps you might still be implored to continue to use AI because these consequences aren't affecting you directly, right? Well, let’s look at that.

How AI Impacts YOU

Have you noticed the skyrocketing price of GPU or DRAM— vital components used in the making of your laptops, computers, and even phones— in the last year? Maybe not if you’re not a tech nerd, but you don’t have to be into computers to be harmed from this.

AI data centers are bulk-buying memory chips from tech companies to accommodate the mass expansion of their AI products. This includes companies like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron—some of the biggest chip manufacturers. The high demand for AI is eating up all this technology, leaving these places short of supply, with some even sold out until next year.

“Cloud giants and hyperscalers have been pulling in orders since late 2025, pre‑booking huge chunks of DRAM and NAND bit growth for AI training clusters and memory‑heavy inference nodes.” Writes Tim Bajarin in As AI Eats Up The World’s Chips, Memory Prices Take The Hit.

If all these data centers are taking in the graphic cards and memory chips, what’s left for the consumers?

Brutally, not much.

Consumers are left with the sloppy seconds of these big corporations. Because of that, the price for these parts skyrocketed: “Server DRAM prices alone are projected to rise by more than 60% quarter‑on‑quarter in early 2026, soaking up output that would otherwise feed PCs, phones, and embedded gear.” Bajarin continues later on.

Assuming you aren’t one of the OpenAI CEOs, that means you’re left with the $1,000+ RAM prices that you won’t be able to afford.

But what if you don’t own a computer, you must be in the clear, right? Wrong. Phones and tablets are also affected by this memory storage caused by AI data centers. They use memory cards just like every other gadget out there, and their prices are about to hit a new high now that good technology is being fed to greedy machines.

So, what are the pros? Surely, there are reasons so many people would rather gamble on the state of our Earth when all of this seems downright horrifying— and there are a few.

Can We Use AI Responsibly?

Generative AI helps with productivity. It can be used to automate tasks like data sorting or organization while giving employees the time to get the more important/demanding work done. If attuned better, Google’s AI Overview could be more helpful by breaking down and finding the information you need, rather than having to sort through articles, blogs, and websites just to find an answer.

Ali Shojaei, assistant professor at Myers-Lawson School of Construction, talked about this idea in an interview with Virginia Tech Engineer: “It can lead to more accurate forecasts of project costs and schedules, helping the industry be more productive and efficient. These technologies not only save time but also potentially save lives by minimizing human error and ensuring a safer working environment.”

Generative AI is also being used to help our environment, even though it takes a great deal from it. AI is being used as a tool to help determine how to waste less water for our agricultural businesses.

In Despite Its Steep Environmental Costs, AI Might Also Help Save the Planet written by Nir Kshetri, an AI irrigation system has reduced water waste, “....up to 30 percent while avoiding overirrigation. Using less water also reduces the amount of energy needed to pump it from the ground and around a farm.”

So, there are good benefits, but they’re being used in all the wrong ways.

Generative AI shouldn’t be used to make uncanny videos or pictures of people you know or be the romantic partner on your phone, but instead be a tool to help us and our environment. We can use it to track pollution in our atmosphere and help scientists make a plan to bring down our waste, or it can be used to write your 9th grade history essay.

Simple and convenient doesn’t always mean better, and in this case, the simplicity is harming the world instead of helping it.

So, what's your take? Are there more consequences or positive uses beyond what's been covered here? I'm sure there are. Tell the others reading this by commenting below and subscribing for more AI angst and/or admiration (depending on who is writing) in the coming months!