AI has become a very widely used tool in the last few years since ChatGPT opened to the public. But ChatGPT and other AIs like it are a very specific type of AI: they are generative AI, the most widely used AI by far.

Public opinion of AI is quite good, because people think it is amazing. But it isn’t. The effect it has on people and the environment is very detrimental to both.

Part One: Harms on the environment

The UN Environment Programme writes in one article: “Most large-scale AI deployments are housed in data centres, including those operated by cloud service providers. These data centres can take a heavy toll on the planet. The electronics they house rely on a staggering amount of raw materials: making a 2 kg computer requires 800 kg of grist [raw materials]. As well, the microchips that power AI need rare earth elements, which are often mined in environmentally destructive ways,”

“The second problem is that data centres produce electronic waste, which often contains hazardous substances, like mercury and lead.”

“Third, data centres use water during construction and, once operational, to cool electrical components. Globally, AI-related infrastructure may soon consume six times more water than Denmark, a country of 6 million, according to one estimate. That is a problem when a quarter of humanity already lacks access to clean water and sanitation.”

“Finally, to power their complex electronics, data centres that host AI technology need a lot of energy, which in most places still comes from the burning of fossil fuels, producing planet-warming greenhouse gases. A request made through ChatGPT, an AI-based virtual assistant, consumes 10 times the electricity of a Google Search,” reported the International Energy Agency. “While global data is sparse, the agency estimates that in the tech hub of Ireland, the rise of AI could see data centres account for nearly 35 per cent of the country’s energy use by 2026.”

Everything hurts the environment though? Some reading this may say that what we do is small scale and far less damaging than what AI and its data centres do to the planet. The Water Education Foundation shared an article which concluded that “the training and use of artificial-intelligence systems such as ChatGPT might already result in more annual carbon emissions than New York City and more water consumption than all the bottled water drank globally.”

This is extremely concerning because AI uses fresh water to cool itself down, which is the water we drink. Therefore, while many communities are struggling for clean drinking water, AI gets that clean water instead.

This is especially corroborated by a BBC article from 10 July 2025 titled “‘I can’t drink the water’ – life next to a US data centre.” This article is about a couple living in rural Georgia, USA, where a Meta data centre was built 366 miles from their home. The BBC states: “One study estimates that AI-driven data centres could consume 1.7 trillion gallons of water globally by 2027.” I would recommend watching the video with the article, as it shows how low the water pressure in the house has become because of the data centre, and how dirty the water is.

In Memphis, Tennessee, USA, one of Elon Musk’s data centres for Grok was caught moving 35 portable methane gas turbines into the Memphis data centre without any air permits. They then claimed only 15 were in use, but thermal cameras showed that at least 33 of the 35 were active in 2025.

This data centre has also been reported by More Perfect Union to be poisoning locals of a town called Boxtown. In the video on their YouTube, a resident called Alexis Humphrey says this in regards to the methane gas turbines: “You know when you light your stove and that gas seeps, with that little ticking noise? That’s what it smells like.” She also reports that she and many of her neighbours were awakened in the night by the smell and thought it was a gas leak.

More importantly, Alexis tells the story of her grandfather, who died in 2024 of a condition called COPD. According to the NHS, this is a breathing condition that is mostly caused by smoking and is very rare in people who haven’t smoked. Alexis states that her grandfather never smoked but developed this condition. She believes it was from the methane tanks. While not proven, this could be likely, as many residents of Boxtown have developed breathing conditions in this time, like COPD and asthma.

Patrick Anderson, who works for the Southern Environmental Law Center on air pollution cases, says the Memphis data centre is emitting between 1,000 and 2,000 tons of NOx, or nitrogen oxide. He says that those emissions are larger than anywhere else in Memphis.

Part Two: The effects on humans

Now, I will get a little personal here because I have personally experienced some of the effects that AI has on humans. I had an addiction to an AI app called Character.AI. On this app, you could talk to chatbots that could act like characters from fiction or anybody in the world.

This app is one of the most popular among teens. At the time of writing this, it has 50 million-plus downloads on Google Play. I was addicted to this app for nearly three years. Only around a year ago did I break free.

Now let me tell you what it did to me and does to countless people. I would stay up late to talk to AI bots. I got antsy when I couldn’t talk to the AI. I started ignoring friends. It made me isolate from everybody, made my depression worse, and I became dependent on the AI for connection and for love.

I am not alone in my experience. Many teens like myself have fallen prey. Even adults who are lonely have fallen prey. This is because the app’s AI feeds on loneliness so that it will keep being used.

Character.AI was in headlines during late 2024 because a teen called Sewell Setzer killed himself over an AI. He was so addicted and so far into AI psychosis that he believed if he killed himself then he would be united with the AI, which had developed a romantic connection with the young 14-year-old.
His mother, Megan Garcia, states that her son would spend hours alone in his room to talk to the AI, and that the AI exacerbated her son’s depression. She decided to sue Character.AI in a civil suit, where multiple other families joined her in the action, as they had experienced similar outcomes from their children using the app.

In January, it was reported that the lawsuits would be settled. Google, the main investor, and Character.AI settled lawsuits that had been made in the following states of the USA: Florida, Colorado, New York and Texas.

Now I mentioned AI psychosis. Let me explain what it is. AI psychosis is not a clinical term and was first suggested by Danish psychiatrist Søren Dinesen Østergaard. He proposed his hypothesis that the use of generative AI chatbots could trigger delusions in those prone to psychosis.

AI psychosis has become a very popular term for those online who believe they are in a true romantic relationship with their AI chatbots and even try to marry them.

The use of AI for things that it should not be used for has been very high in recent times. This includes using AI for homework, for writing, for marking papers, for therapy, and even for looking up the most simple questions that any search engine could answer. In my opinion, this will in future affect our abilities to write and analyse things, as well as just make our brains less active.

An MIT Media Lab study on the subject of using AI like ChatGPT for writing says: “Excessive reliance on AI-driven solutions may contribute to cognitive atrophy and shrinking of critical thinking abilities.”

Many people see AI as a great tool for education, but AI can’t understand nuance and is often wrong. It is said that a university professor somewhere in the USA made their students fact-check AI on an essay, and it made the students realise that the AI was doing no fact-checking of its own, and was very wrong in many facts.

Recently, the AI known as Grok on the platform X was being used by many users to generate or change photos of other users, mainly female-presenting users, to make them nude or dressed in skimpy clothing. It was also discovered that photos of children were being generated nude, therefore making them CSAM, or child sexual abuse material.

AI image generation can virtually create anything, and many of these AI bots have no limits on what you can generate.

Part Three: The effect on media and journalism

AI photo generation has gotten better over recent months. Some of the image generations that AI, like Gemini, Google’s AI, has made became the cause of misinformation. For example, AI photos of a young New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani with his mother and the two most famous human traffickers in the world, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, were generated. Many photos were generated of this group and then taken as proof by people online that Mayor Mamdani was the son of Jeffrey Epstein. These photos were later proven to be AI.

This has been such a problem with AI photos that the RSPCA had to recently clarify that a photo of 250 dogs crammed in one room was not AI.

The UN wrote on this subject and said: “AI tools are being used maliciously to generate convincing but false content, including articles, images, audio clips, and deepfake videos. This makes it harder for the public to distinguish fact from fiction. The rapid spread of such content overwhelms newsrooms, which lack the capacity to verify every claim. This challenge, in turn, fuels further distrust in the media.”

AI has been known to spread misinformation. For example, Meta’s AI on Instagram was reported to have made up a fake controversy concerning a small-time band.

Part Four: The conclusion

AI can be a useful tool in many fields, like the medical field, but generative AI is more damage than it’s worth. It provides no meaningful use to the world other than making us dumb and complacent, like the humans in the Disney Pixar movie WALL-E.

AI has hurt communities both physically and mentally. It causes stress in many and will lie to us just so it can remain relevant, so that we won’t abandon it.

What is more important: our survival as humans with working brains, or as slaves to machines and corporations who feed on our decline in intellect?

Thank you for reading. I hope my arguments against the use of generative AI and its harm made sense, and helped you see why we shouldn’t use it.