In the age of artificial intelligence, it seems that what we once called “common sense” is now being outsourced to machines—large, powerful, energy-hungry machines. The ease with which we type a question into ChatGPT and receive an instant answer hides a deeper truth: the environment is footing the bill for our convenience.
Artificial Intelligence, especially large language models like ChatGPT and image generation engines like Midjourney, consume massive amounts of electricity and gallons of water to stay cool.
According to a study by the University of California, training a single large AI model can emit over 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent—that’s roughly five times the lifetime emissions of an average car. A 2023 report by Bloomberg revealed that Microsoft’s AI data centres in the US consumed nearly 1.7 billion liters of water in a single year just to cool their systems. And these are the early days of AI; the expansion is only accelerating.
Let that sink in. We are draining water—nature’s most sacred gift—not for agriculture, not for drinking, but to cool servers that often respond to questions like “What’s my horoscope today?”, or “Can you write me a breakup text?”
Pakistan, already one of the world’s top ten most climate-vulnerable countries, faces this global AI race with a heavy cost. We live with recurring heatwaves, floods, and now an increasing water scarcity crisis. And yet, we remain unaware of how AI—which we access for free—comes with a hidden environmental price tag that we may soon be forced to pay, again.
We must remind ourselves that nothing is truly free. The illusion of free services hides the exploitation of resources elsewhere. Our desire for instant knowledge, flawless language, or even synthetic beauty is pushing the planet further into imbalance.
What happens when a generation learns to consume answers but not question them? When “knowledge” becomes searchable, but wonder becomes rare? When we stop asking questions like “What is the meaning of life?” and instead flood machines with prompts like “Write my assignment,” we risk turning the human brain into what Nietzsche feared: a herald—something that merely carries information without digesting it.
We are not just outsourcing thought; we are outsourcing awe.
AI was supposed to assist our thinking, not replace the process of human inquiry. But this technology, like many before it, is being used in a pattern that philosopher Martin Heidegger once warned us about: “The essence of technology is not technological.”
In other words, technology changes the way we see the world—often reducing it into a resource to be used, rather than a mystery to be cherished.
At a national level, we must rethink our digital and environmental policies. As AI expands in education, banking, industry, and governance, we must calculate its ecological cost—not just its productivity gains. And at a personal level, we must teach ourselves and our students that real intelligence is not about answering fast—it’s about asking better.
Books like Yuval Harari’s Homo Deus warn us that as mankind gains power through algorithms, we may lose the very thing that made us human: our ability to wonder, to doubt, and to feel small under the stars. The Earth has given us life so we may know it—but we seem to be living less and knowing more, and that too through borrowed, energy-guzzling tools.
In Pakistan, where our youth are the majority, we must urgently build awareness about the unseen climate impact of AI. Public awareness campaigns, green-tech policies, and responsible usage must be introduced—not after another flood or drought, but now. The AI race must not turn into a climate suicide pact.
Let us remember: we live first, and we know later. And for us to live, nature must live too. Because this time, when nature pays the price, it may not send the bill—it may just leave.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
The writer is an Assistant Professor at Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE). He can be reached at: khurramellahi@pide.org.pk