August 9, 2026 • 16 mins
There is a quiet guilt a lot of people carry every time they open ChatGPT. Somewhere between the headlines about data centres and the vague sense that AI is somehow worse for the planet than everything else we do without a second thought, it becomes easier to just feel bad than to actually work out whether that guilt is warranted.
Nobody hands you the comparison points. Is a heavy day of prompting worse than a night of Netflix? Worse than a round of golf? Nobody says.
In this How I AI episode, Neo and I go looking for the real figures. You will hear how an hour of heavy AI use stacks up against an hour of Netflix, why American golf courses use far more water than AI data centres, and the two things you can personally do that make a genuine difference, including one that has nothing to do with AI at all.
What you'll learn:
- How an hour of heavy AI use actually compares to an hour of Netflix
- Why golf courses use more water than AI data centres, and why nobody is calling to ban golf
- What separates the environmental cost of training AI from simply using it
- What governments, companies and individuals can each actually do about AI's environmental impact
- The one everyday habit that beats cutting your AI use altogether
- Practical AI tools for productivity and focus
- Real-world AI workflows used by high performers
- How to use AI at work without burning out
- Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load
Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.
How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.
Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Someone at work asks whether they should feel guilty about
using AI, or maybe you've asked yourself that. I mean,
you've probably seen the headlines about data centers draining water
and burning power, and it feels like there's an unease
sitting underneath every PROMPTU type. But the tricky part is
(00:23):
almost nobody gives you the numbers, just vibes and a
vague sense that you're doing something bad for the environment.
So in this episode, now and I go looking for
the actual figures, you will hear how an hour of
heavy AI use compares to an hour of Netflix, why
(00:44):
American golf courses use five times more water than AI
data centers, and the two things you can personally do
that make a real difference, including one that has nothing
to do with AI at all. The end of this episode,
you will be leaving with some facts instead of guesswork
(01:06):
about AI's impact on the environment. Welcome to how IAI
with me Doctor Amoutha Imba and Neo Applin, head of
Inventium AI. Each episode we share one practical way to
use AI better at work and in life. No fluff,
(01:29):
no tech jargon, just things you can use straight away.
Neo is something that we are getting asked more and
more in our AI workshops that we run at Inventium.
AI is concerns about the environment and AI's impact on that.
So for those that are hearing this but perhaps don't
(01:52):
quite understand, you know, how is AI actually impacted the environment?
What does that actually look like? Could you just explain
why we should care about this.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
We're seeing more and more news articles on this. It's
a very important thing to have a look at because
there is an environmental impact of AI. There's a couple
of main impacts here. The first is power, in that
these data centers do use a fair bit of power,
and particularly when you're centralizing all of this AI use
in a single spot in a single data center, yes,
it can chew an awful lot of power, and I'll
(02:27):
come back to that in a minute. But there's also water.
The reason why they use water is to cool some
of these data centers because the AI chips, the AI
graphics units in video chips you're hearing about, they do
heat up a lot, and so therefore you need to
call them down, and they call them down with water.
And once again that's a fair bit of water that
gets used in these spots. But first thing I will
(02:48):
say there is there's a lot more power and water
in the training of these things than in the using
of these things. So most when you and I are
using it, it's a fraction of what it takes for
them to train these things.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Okay, now we're going to get into what companies can
do and what individuals can do. But first, I mean,
what role does the government play in all of this.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
There's many different roles for different players, and yeah, the
government does have a big role in that. If we're
going to be setting up these data centers in say Australia,
but there's more of them of course in America, then
where do you set them up? How do you set
them up? And what we need to do to be
able to make sure that things like power and water
are just going to be sucked away from communities and
we've got ethically use of power and water. So for example,
(03:34):
some governments are saying, hey, look, you've got to have
x percentage of sustainable power there, and then you need
to be able to source water from a space where
you're not sucking away from all the communities. And that's
very much a government thing, that's not a you and
I think, but certainly we can make a call on
that every four years at the voting box.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Now, what about companies because certainly a lot of leaders
that we are speaking to with the organizations that we
were with getting a lot of questions from the staff,
and I mean, what should organizations be doing here?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Having the discussion is first, absolutely let's bring it out there.
But ultimately training really matters. And I'm saying this, we're
a training company and with this what we do. But
it's if you use AI well, you will use less
of it. And so as far as for each interaction,
(04:29):
each thing you're getting to work on. So for example,
if you're having lots of arguments with AI, it's misunderstanding you,
it's giving you some AI slop, You've then got to
work with it again. There's a lot of interactions there
that potentially didn't need to happen if you just spend
a little bit more time or getting a better prompt
or better discussion with AI. So therefore, knowing how to
(04:50):
use AI means that for each time you use it,
you'll actually use it well. And also you'll use it
for a more important things. So rather than getting it
to write you boring emails or create slopped do guments
of ten or so pages. Instead you're getting it to
actually move the dial forward, in which case then you're
doing the important work, not just the hack work. And
so training people on how to use that well actually
(05:11):
will mean that it's a reduced environmental impact, which is
a nice thing as well.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, what else can organizations be doing before we get
on to individuals like you and I.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, there's some things that organizations can do, particularly around
looking at their environmentally sustainable goals and targets and things
like that, and so how can we then have that
discussion make sure that we know what we're doing. It's
a bit like flights, So how are we going to
deal with flights? Are we going to minimize them with
flights in all those kind of things, and so having
that on the plan, having that as a discussion with
(05:45):
what you're going to do at a company level as
well as then how do you help your staff to
know when to use it and when not to use it?
And on that very important to have guidelines on where
AI use is probably a good idea in the company,
and when AI use is not a good idea in
the company, And so is it a good idea for
us just to create documents that get big documents for
(06:06):
the sake of having big documents, because I feel awesome,
I've just got a big document and then I send
it three to you, and then you get bored of
this big document looks like aislop and then you summarize
my big document using AI and so there it just
becomes like AI whispers. It's just terrible, just terrible. So
if you're sending some norms on what we really want
to do in this company and what our good behaviors are,
which is just good for humans, Like it's I think
(06:29):
it's rude for me to get five dot points and
then create that into a ten page document that you've
got to read. I think that's rude. But organizations need
to have that discussion, like what is good around here?
How are we going to use AI so that we
get the best bang for buck. We actually care about
our people and their days and therefore you know there
was also reduced environmental impact there.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I want to talk about individuals because there's going to
be a lot of people listening to this that are like, well,
I don't own a business, I'm not a leader in
a company, I can't influence these things, but I can
change what I do as an individual. So maybe a
good place to start is just understanding because I know
you've researched, like, what are the different parallels in terms
of you know, where there's so much press around AI's
(07:14):
very negative impact on the environment, but there's perhaps less
press about some of the other things that are part
of this world that we just kind of accept and
don't think about the environmental impact. So maybe let's start there.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Let's take one big step back. How environmentally bad? I'm
doing air quotes here, of course, not great for a podcast.
How bad is this AI stuff? Because a lot of
people that were not a lot, there's a significant portion
of people we speak to are really quite concerned about this,
and some people are almost anti AI because of things
(07:49):
like that. You've probably seen footage of people at commencement
speeches in universities in America getting booed and things like that,
because some people are really anti AI, and one of
the reasons why they get that is because of the
environmental impact. So how bad is the environmental impact of AI?
I'm going to put it into some perspectives where we see,
(08:11):
let's let's balance it with some things. Okay, so let's
use an example here of let's say power. AI does
use power absolutely, and but let's balance these things out.
So how much would you think you would use if
you're having a really really really heavy use of AI?
How many how many chats or how many prompts would
(08:33):
you have backwards and forwards with your chat jeput or
claud or whatever in a one hour period if you
like absolutely going to hammer it?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Oh, I maybe a hundred. Does that sound about right?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I think that would be huge, That would be huge,
I would say, so. But yeah, so one hundred, let's go.
Let's go one hundred. Then all right, so it does
sums in head. Now, so if you're doing one hundred
in an hour, and most people are using their laptops, right,
so let's look at that. That is okay, So one
(09:11):
hundred queries in an hour is actually going to cost you.
I think it's seventy of my calculations, say seventy what hours?
And by the way, this is all very much back
of the napkin type stuff, because of course no one
knows exactly how many prompts you're doing, and all of
these different things so seventy what hours? Now where does
that come from? That's thirty four what hours for AI
(09:35):
and that's in the data center. Then you've got eighteen
for your laptop, and then you've got about another eighteen
for all the internet transmission and your router and all
that kind of stuff. So I'm trying to make it
a fair approximation. So we're looking at around about seventy
what hours there, big w little h okay, So that
sounds like a lot. I think, I don't know. I
(09:56):
don't know what a what hour is? Do you know
what what hour is? Anyway? So what else this is
around about that range? Well, believe it or not, one
hour of watching Netflix is seventy seven hour, So one
hundred chats on your laptop is less than watching Netflix
for an hour. But no one's going ben Netflix because
damn it, I want to watch My Love Islands, everyone says, right,
(10:19):
so you know where does the Netflix come from? Let's
be really, I'll bring out the numbers. So it's around
about for what hours for Netflix in the in the
in the data centers, still the same eighteen for Internet transmission.
I've got nuts here because Chagibt will actually use a
lot less than that. So you use a lot more
(10:41):
Internet for Netflix because movies and videos take a lot
of power there, and then fifty five what hours for
your TV. It's actually what's happening with Netflix is the
power consumption is more on you in your home, whereas
with AI, yes there's more power consumption, but it's all
consentualized in that data center over there. But here's the thing.
(11:01):
You're actually using more total power watching Netflix on your
TV at home than you are one hundred chats in AI.
So power it absolutely uses, but it's not armageddon here.
In fact, no one's going, oh my god, ban Netflix
because you know that we're comfortable with that, and so
power does get used. But let's speak clear. It's not
a truck done.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Now. I've heard you talk about golf courses when you
talk about AI's environmental impact. Can you explain the connection here?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah? Yeah, So the tops of AI, you know, like
the people who are running AI, they're all golfers. No,
this has nothing to do with people playing golf. Some
people say that each prompt you give to AI it
uses one fifth of a teaspoon of water, but that
doesn't mean much for people. Other people are saying, look,
(11:50):
it's sucking up a lot of water, and therefore too
much water is getting taken out, and so therefore, let's
ban AI. Let's look at how much water is actually
being used. Now, once again, back of the NAPCA and
kind of things. From the research, I can find all
of the golf courses in America use five times more
water than AI data centers use in America, and of
(12:11):
course all the data centers are pretty much in America,
so there is five times more water in golf courses,
but no one is saying let's ban golf, which I
find quite interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Now.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Of course, some of the back of the nap cline
is some of the golf courses recycle their water, and
but then again some of the AI data centers are
also doing things like that as well. In fact, they're
trying to build in more technologies so the water doesn't
get used and thrown out instead it gets recycled and
things like that. But yeah, it does use water, But no,
we shouldn't say let's not use AI because it uses water,
(12:43):
because people are still using for golf and no one
seems to complain about that. So is it more water
usage on top? Yes, it is. Do we need to
watch out for the water usage? Hell? Yeah, absolutely, But
is it again for water? I don't think so. And
if it is, then maybe let's look in other places
that are maybe more water consumptive without that much public
(13:04):
benefit like AI does. Okay.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Finally NEO for people listening that are like, well, what
can I do as an individual that is in my control?
If I am feeling very concerned about the fact that
maybe I don't play golf, but I do use AI
a lot. So what is one thing that we can
all do differently?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I'll give you two things. Learn how to prompt well
and deal with AI well. So we talked earlier about
don't have these bad backwards and forwards and yelling at
AI and things like that. There are other good, really
hygiene things, which is use the right model you need to,
so don't get the hardest, biggest, most expensive thing if
you're just getting into summarize a paragraph and also having
really long chat threads actually are more environmentally you know,
(13:50):
they burn up more tokens more use than a short, nice,
light fast thing. So this will part of training and
good use. There are other things if you really really
care about the environment and our team member, Hannah would
would love you to do this as well. Is simply
go vegan for one day a week, so instead of
taco Tuesday, have tofu Tuesday. I understand in America, Kevin
(14:13):
Bacon is he's got an advertising campaign. He's changing his
name to Kevin Bean. Every Wednesday, he beans for dinner
on Wednesday night. But if you go vegan one day
a week for a year, there's only one day week,
one day a week that is more environmentally conscious than
doing one hundred prompts an hour, eight hours a day
(14:33):
every day workday for the year. In fact, you've got
more than that, so you've actually one day off meat
is more environmentally conscious than using ai every day of
the week and hammering it for every hour of every day,
which of course no one ever does because we've got
meetings and lunchtimes and breaks and all those kind of things.
So all you need to do is, if you're really
(14:54):
worried about an environment, go vegan one day a week.
Absolutely much better for the environment. So if the environment
matters to you, vegan's great, and tofu, tempe beans, pulses,
those kind of things are absolutely your friends. And yeah,
certainly it's something you can totally do, and that's in
your hands to be able to manage. You can't manage
the government. Apart from talking to your local governments and
(15:15):
talking to your federal and state governments, the regulators. You've
got nothing you can do with the regulators, and you
can't even talk to Anthropic or whatever. Maybe you can
use your dollars if you like one company over the other.
But one thing in your hands, or two things, is
how you use the AI and also whether you indeed
want to go vegan or not. I love that.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
And if you have been listening to this episode and
you know someone who is concerned about AI's impact on
the environment, maybe consider sending them this episode and have
a little think about maybe becoming vegan or maybe protesting
against golf courses.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Either one one day a week, you know, one day.
We don't need meat every single day of the week,
so yeah, just have a veggie meal here or there.
I'm a big fan of beans myself.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
How I AI was hosted by me Amantha Imber and
Neo Applan. A big thank you to Martin Imber who
does our sound editing, and Jim Rubio for production support,
and thank you to John Kilby, who composed the theme music,
Someone at work asks whether they should feel guilty about
using AI, or maybe you've asked yourself that. I mean,
you've probably seen the headlines about data centers draining water
and burning power, and it feels like there's an unease
sitting underneath every PROMPTU type. But the tricky part is
(00:23):
almost nobody gives you the numbers, just vibes and a
vague sense that you're doing something bad for the environment.
So in this episode, now and I go looking for
the actual figures, you will hear how an hour of
heavy AI use compares to an hour of Netflix, why
(00:44):
American golf courses use five times more water than AI
data centers, and the two things you can personally do
that make a real difference, including one that has nothing
to do with AI at all. The end of this episode,
you will be leaving with some facts instead of guesswork
(01:06):
about AI's impact on the environment. Welcome to how IAI
with me Doctor Amoutha Imba and Neo Applin, head of
Inventium AI. Each episode we share one practical way to
use AI better at work and in life. No fluff,
(01:29):
no tech jargon, just things you can use straight away.
Neo is something that we are getting asked more and
more in our AI workshops that we run at Inventium.
AI is concerns about the environment and AI's impact on that.
So for those that are hearing this but perhaps don't
(01:52):
quite understand, you know, how is AI actually impacted the environment?
What does that actually look like? Could you just explain
why we should care about this.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
We're seeing more and more news articles on this. It's
a very important thing to have a look at because
there is an environmental impact of AI. There's a couple
of main impacts here. The first is power, in that
these data centers do use a fair bit of power,
and particularly when you're centralizing all of this AI use
in a single spot in a single data center, yes,
it can chew an awful lot of power, and I'll
(02:27):
come back to that in a minute. But there's also water.
The reason why they use water is to cool some
of these data centers because the AI chips, the AI
graphics units in video chips you're hearing about, they do
heat up a lot, and so therefore you need to
call them down, and they call them down with water.
And once again that's a fair bit of water that
gets used in these spots. But first thing I will
(02:48):
say there is there's a lot more power and water
in the training of these things than in the using
of these things. So most when you and I are
using it, it's a fraction of what it takes for
them to train these things.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Okay, now we're going to get into what companies can
do and what individuals can do. But first, I mean,
what role does the government play in all of this.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
There's many different roles for different players, and yeah, the
government does have a big role in that. If we're
going to be setting up these data centers in say Australia,
but there's more of them of course in America, then
where do you set them up? How do you set
them up? And what we need to do to be
able to make sure that things like power and water
are just going to be sucked away from communities and
we've got ethically use of power and water. So for example,
(03:34):
some governments are saying, hey, look, you've got to have
x percentage of sustainable power there, and then you need
to be able to source water from a space where
you're not sucking away from all the communities. And that's
very much a government thing, that's not a you and
I think, but certainly we can make a call on
that every four years at the voting box.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Now, what about companies because certainly a lot of leaders
that we are speaking to with the organizations that we
were with getting a lot of questions from the staff,
and I mean, what should organizations be doing here?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Having the discussion is first, absolutely let's bring it out there.
But ultimately training really matters. And I'm saying this, we're
a training company and with this what we do. But
it's if you use AI well, you will use less
of it. And so as far as for each interaction,
(04:29):
each thing you're getting to work on. So for example,
if you're having lots of arguments with AI, it's misunderstanding you,
it's giving you some AI slop, You've then got to
work with it again. There's a lot of interactions there
that potentially didn't need to happen if you just spend
a little bit more time or getting a better prompt
or better discussion with AI. So therefore, knowing how to
(04:50):
use AI means that for each time you use it,
you'll actually use it well. And also you'll use it
for a more important things. So rather than getting it
to write you boring emails or create slopped do guments
of ten or so pages. Instead you're getting it to
actually move the dial forward, in which case then you're
doing the important work, not just the hack work. And
so training people on how to use that well actually
(05:11):
will mean that it's a reduced environmental impact, which is
a nice thing as well.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, what else can organizations be doing before we get
on to individuals like you and I.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, there's some things that organizations can do, particularly around
looking at their environmentally sustainable goals and targets and things
like that, and so how can we then have that
discussion make sure that we know what we're doing. It's
a bit like flights, So how are we going to
deal with flights? Are we going to minimize them with
flights in all those kind of things, and so having
that on the plan, having that as a discussion with
(05:45):
what you're going to do at a company level as
well as then how do you help your staff to
know when to use it and when not to use it?
And on that very important to have guidelines on where
AI use is probably a good idea in the company,
and when AI use is not a good idea in
the company, And so is it a good idea for
us just to create documents that get big documents for
(06:06):
the sake of having big documents, because I feel awesome,
I've just got a big document and then I send
it three to you, and then you get bored of
this big document looks like aislop and then you summarize
my big document using AI and so there it just
becomes like AI whispers. It's just terrible, just terrible. So
if you're sending some norms on what we really want
to do in this company and what our good behaviors are,
which is just good for humans, Like it's I think
(06:29):
it's rude for me to get five dot points and
then create that into a ten page document that you've
got to read. I think that's rude. But organizations need
to have that discussion, like what is good around here?
How are we going to use AI so that we
get the best bang for buck. We actually care about
our people and their days and therefore you know there
was also reduced environmental impact there.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I want to talk about individuals because there's going to
be a lot of people listening to this that are like, well,
I don't own a business, I'm not a leader in
a company, I can't influence these things, but I can
change what I do as an individual. So maybe a
good place to start is just understanding because I know
you've researched, like, what are the different parallels in terms
of you know, where there's so much press around AI's
(07:14):
very negative impact on the environment, but there's perhaps less
press about some of the other things that are part
of this world that we just kind of accept and
don't think about the environmental impact. So maybe let's start there.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Let's take one big step back. How environmentally bad? I'm
doing air quotes here, of course, not great for a podcast.
How bad is this AI stuff? Because a lot of
people that were not a lot, there's a significant portion
of people we speak to are really quite concerned about this,
and some people are almost anti AI because of things
(07:49):
like that. You've probably seen footage of people at commencement
speeches in universities in America getting booed and things like that,
because some people are really anti AI, and one of
the reasons why they get that is because of the
environmental impact. So how bad is the environmental impact of AI?
I'm going to put it into some perspectives where we see,
(08:11):
let's let's balance it with some things. Okay, so let's
use an example here of let's say power. AI does
use power absolutely, and but let's balance these things out.
So how much would you think you would use if
you're having a really really really heavy use of AI?
How many how many chats or how many prompts would
(08:33):
you have backwards and forwards with your chat jeput or
claud or whatever in a one hour period if you
like absolutely going to hammer it?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Oh, I maybe a hundred. Does that sound about right?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I think that would be huge, That would be huge,
I would say, so. But yeah, so one hundred, let's go.
Let's go one hundred. Then all right, so it does
sums in head. Now, so if you're doing one hundred
in an hour, and most people are using their laptops, right,
so let's look at that. That is okay, So one
(09:11):
hundred queries in an hour is actually going to cost you.
I think it's seventy of my calculations, say seventy what hours?
And by the way, this is all very much back
of the napkin type stuff, because of course no one
knows exactly how many prompts you're doing, and all of
these different things so seventy what hours? Now where does
that come from? That's thirty four what hours for AI
(09:35):
and that's in the data center. Then you've got eighteen
for your laptop, and then you've got about another eighteen
for all the internet transmission and your router and all
that kind of stuff. So I'm trying to make it
a fair approximation. So we're looking at around about seventy
what hours there, big w little h okay, So that
sounds like a lot. I think, I don't know. I
(09:56):
don't know what a what hour is? Do you know
what what hour is? Anyway? So what else this is
around about that range? Well, believe it or not, one
hour of watching Netflix is seventy seven hour, So one
hundred chats on your laptop is less than watching Netflix
for an hour. But no one's going ben Netflix because
damn it, I want to watch My Love Islands, everyone says, right,
(10:19):
so you know where does the Netflix come from? Let's
be really, I'll bring out the numbers. So it's around
about for what hours for Netflix in the in the
in the data centers, still the same eighteen for Internet transmission.
I've got nuts here because Chagibt will actually use a
lot less than that. So you use a lot more
(10:41):
Internet for Netflix because movies and videos take a lot
of power there, and then fifty five what hours for
your TV. It's actually what's happening with Netflix is the
power consumption is more on you in your home, whereas
with AI, yes there's more power consumption, but it's all
consentualized in that data center over there. But here's the thing.
(11:01):
You're actually using more total power watching Netflix on your
TV at home than you are one hundred chats in AI.
So power it absolutely uses, but it's not armageddon here.
In fact, no one's going, oh my god, ban Netflix
because you know that we're comfortable with that, and so
power does get used. But let's speak clear. It's not
a truck done.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Now. I've heard you talk about golf courses when you
talk about AI's environmental impact. Can you explain the connection here?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah? Yeah, So the tops of AI, you know, like
the people who are running AI, they're all golfers. No,
this has nothing to do with people playing golf. Some
people say that each prompt you give to AI it
uses one fifth of a teaspoon of water, but that
doesn't mean much for people. Other people are saying, look,
(11:50):
it's sucking up a lot of water, and therefore too
much water is getting taken out, and so therefore, let's
ban AI. Let's look at how much water is actually
being used. Now, once again, back of the NAPCA and
kind of things. From the research, I can find all
of the golf courses in America use five times more
water than AI data centers use in America, and of
(12:11):
course all the data centers are pretty much in America,
so there is five times more water in golf courses,
but no one is saying let's ban golf, which I
find quite interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Now.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Of course, some of the back of the nap cline
is some of the golf courses recycle their water, and
but then again some of the AI data centers are
also doing things like that as well. In fact, they're
trying to build in more technologies so the water doesn't
get used and thrown out instead it gets recycled and
things like that. But yeah, it does use water, But no,
we shouldn't say let's not use AI because it uses water,
(12:43):
because people are still using for golf and no one
seems to complain about that. So is it more water
usage on top? Yes, it is. Do we need to
watch out for the water usage? Hell? Yeah, absolutely, But
is it again for water? I don't think so. And
if it is, then maybe let's look in other places
that are maybe more water consumptive without that much public
(13:04):
benefit like AI does. Okay.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Finally NEO for people listening that are like, well, what
can I do as an individual that is in my control?
If I am feeling very concerned about the fact that
maybe I don't play golf, but I do use AI
a lot. So what is one thing that we can
all do differently?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I'll give you two things. Learn how to prompt well
and deal with AI well. So we talked earlier about
don't have these bad backwards and forwards and yelling at
AI and things like that. There are other good, really
hygiene things, which is use the right model you need to,
so don't get the hardest, biggest, most expensive thing if
you're just getting into summarize a paragraph and also having
really long chat threads actually are more environmentally you know,
(13:50):
they burn up more tokens more use than a short, nice,
light fast thing. So this will part of training and
good use. There are other things if you really really
care about the environment and our team member, Hannah would
would love you to do this as well. Is simply
go vegan for one day a week, so instead of
taco Tuesday, have tofu Tuesday. I understand in America, Kevin
(14:13):
Bacon is he's got an advertising campaign. He's changing his
name to Kevin Bean. Every Wednesday, he beans for dinner
on Wednesday night. But if you go vegan one day
a week for a year, there's only one day week,
one day a week that is more environmentally conscious than
doing one hundred prompts an hour, eight hours a day
(14:33):
every day workday for the year. In fact, you've got
more than that, so you've actually one day off meat
is more environmentally conscious than using ai every day of
the week and hammering it for every hour of every day,
which of course no one ever does because we've got
meetings and lunchtimes and breaks and all those kind of things.
So all you need to do is, if you're really
(14:54):
worried about an environment, go vegan one day a week.
Absolutely much better for the environment. So if the environment
matters to you, vegan's great, and tofu, tempe beans, pulses,
those kind of things are absolutely your friends. And yeah,
certainly it's something you can totally do, and that's in
your hands to be able to manage. You can't manage
the government. Apart from talking to your local governments and
(15:15):
talking to your federal and state governments, the regulators. You've
got nothing you can do with the regulators, and you
can't even talk to Anthropic or whatever. Maybe you can
use your dollars if you like one company over the other.
But one thing in your hands, or two things, is
how you use the AI and also whether you indeed
want to go vegan or not. I love that.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
And if you have been listening to this episode and
you know someone who is concerned about AI's impact on
the environment, maybe consider sending them this episode and have
a little think about maybe becoming vegan or maybe protesting
against golf courses.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Either one one day a week, you know, one day.
We don't need meat every single day of the week,
so yeah, just have a veggie meal here or there.
I'm a big fan of beans myself.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
How I AI was hosted by me Amantha Imber and
Neo Applan. A big thank you to Martin Imber who
does our sound editing, and Jim Rubio for production support,
and thank you to John Kilby, who composed the theme music,
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