By far the worst impact of the AI uprising is the horrible impact on the environment. To be able to power AI and store data from it, massive data centers have to be built all across the world and especially in the U.S. as of recently. These data centers contain large computers and servers all under a constant, heavy workload and because of this workload the servers tend to get ridiculously hot. According to global tech outlet Rest of World, the ideal operating temperature for these servers is between 18 and 27 degrees Celsius (64-81 Fahrenheit). To bring these servers to that temperature, they must, like all computers, have massive coolers to reduce the temperatures to ideal operating conditions. Without the coolers, heat can become “among the biggest risk factor” to these data centers, according to Hazel Gandhi and Rina Chandran of Rest of World. Miguel Yañez-Barnuevo of The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) claimed in June of 2025 that large data centers can consume up to five million gallons of freshwater a day just to cool these servers, which for context is roughly equivalent to the water use of “a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people.” Similarly to humans, servers do not consume saltwater, and only use freshwater to cool these systems. Unfortunately, Bañez-Barnuevo states that only three percent of Earth’s water supply is freshwater, and only a sixth of that is safe for human consumption. With this little water available to humans who need it to survive, it is unacceptable for this much of it to go exclusively towards cooling AI servers when there are people throughout the world who constantly do not have access to clean drinking water or have enough of it to survive.
“Slop” was named the 2025 Word of the Year by Merriam-Webster, specifically its use in the context of AI Slop, which has many meanings depending on who you ask. It is primarily used to describe any AI-generated art, whether pictures, text or music. The main criticism of said Slop is that because AI is not sentient, it produces this only by stealing from existing art and copyrighted works. AI Music creation platform Suno was sued by Warner Media Group in 2024 for copyright infringement, and, during said lawsuit, Suno admitted in a legal filing that they do train their music-generation model off of existing copyrighted material and without permission from the copyright holders. In response, the Recording Industry Association of America stated on Twitter that Suno does not fall under fair use and that “there’s nothing fair about stealing an artist’s life’s work, extracting its core value, and repackaging it to compete directly with the originals” (per Mashable). It isn’t just music, though, as in 2023, the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) went on strike due to a contract dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and one of their primary goals was to limit the use of artificial intelligence within Hollywood writing. While some writers admitted that they might have use for such technology, one of their main goals was to guarantee that said technology would not replace normal writers. Luckily, safeguards were put in place to prevent this after the strike ended in October of 2023, but unfortunately, the idea of using AI in Hollywood has not vanished, as the 2026 TV Series On This Day… 1776 is using AI to “animate” the entire show instead of using live action actors or using real animation. At least the voice actors themselves are real people, but it may not be too long before we have an AI generated script, cast, footage and editing, which is extremely dangerous to the thousands who depend on these careers for a living.
If you’re a student, AI negatively impacts your life too. Chances are that most students currently do not use AI to do their assignments outright, although many use it for assistance. However, AI detection systems are likely to think that you’re cheating over basic things, like using an oxford comma or copy and pasting a quote. The Em Dash, a stylistic punctuation device, is used to add emphasis to something in a sentence. However, because Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini use these devices often, if you use the Em Dash, you are often accused of using AI to write your essay for you. Other common sentences, like those that follow the template “it’s not just A, it’s B” are also red flags because LLMs overuse them. Basically, if you happen to have a certain writing style that you’ve had even before the development of AI, you’d better hope that plagiarism and AI detectors don’t suspect you of academic dishonesty. It isn’t just students who use it, however, it’s also teachers. Many teachers use AI to help grade their work or create assignments or study materials, such as our very own Mr. Hall. Hall said that as a teacher, he uses AI to generate study materials and compress “extensive” scoring rubrics into something easier to understand both for students and himself. Hall says that this allows him to more “concisely highlight the strengths and weaknesses” of an essay to easily give students feedback. Hall says he currently does not use AI to grade his work, but has used it to legitimize and corroborate his own scores that he gives students.
What arguably is the worst aspect about the rise of AI to the general public is your inability to opt out of it. Any time you use Google, the top result is now an AI generated summary, which often pulls from unreliable sources such as random Reddit comments that might be wrong or just straight up satirical. Google Gemini has replaced Google Assistant on all Android phones and this AI lacks the ability to send texts or start calls, making it fundamentally worse than the assistants that it replaced. Grammarly added a feature to AI generate texts, emails, and essays for you, so now if you use Grammarly you’re susceptible to being accused of AI. AI is used in everything now, and by the time everybody else is tired of it, it’ll be too late to get rid of it.
