Ericka McGhee 4/9/26 - AI vs The Environment (outside reading)

Last year, I wrote an essay about the effects of AI on the environment. Throughout my research, I read a couple of articles explaining how AI is harming our home. One explained how data centers are consuming a lot of the freshwater around them. This relates to what we are learning in class because of the documentary we watched. Data centers are using a little of what freshwater we do have. The data centers consume so much energy that each kilowatt-hour used requires 2 liters of freshwater to cool them down. Data centers are producing harmful gases into the atmosphere, impacting the environment around them.  With the creation of AI, it has impacted them at a quicker pace because of how often these dating centers are used. The power requirements have increased rapidly, from 2,688 to 5,341 megawatts in just a year. This is becoming a major problem because soon the surrounding environments will be extremely damaged, and the freshwater supply will be even less than it is now.

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