Topic 4 Reflection
AI is something that I’ve found myself having a hard time agreeing on. Personally, I have found it near impossible to look past the negative environmental impacts that AI warehouses pose in terms of energy and water consumption. Through Instagram posts and Tik Tok reels I was led to believe that the impacts of AI were unlike anything else. But upon further research I have found that while yes, it does consume a lot of water and energy, so many other things that we have deemed normal also consume a lot of these resources. A classmate recommended a video by Hank Green on AI’s water consumption called Why is Everyone So Wrong About AI Water Use? that I found very interesting. He talks about how it is difficult to really measure the amount of water used as there are so many stages where water is involved that either people forget to include or choose not to include in research statistics. There are many differing stats out there that are wildly different but could all be true depending on what is included in the numbers. Hank compares the amount of water AI uses to the amount of water it takes to grow corn in the USA and the amount of water needed for the corn is about 80x more than what AI uses per year globally. That is crazy! So it is hard to say how bad it actually is, especially when taking into account that not all water is the same. Some water is potable while some water isn’t. And, some water gets recycled and used again. I found the video quite insightful and while AI still hasn’t won me over, I am more aware of what goes into calculating statistics and to be cautious of what the media shows me. Open AI doesn’t share all of their data so researching this topic can feel like running into a lot of dead ends.
Another thing that worries me about AI is critical thinking skills for students. I have been in classes where students open Chat GPT and blatantly search for the answers to their worksheet or homework. This isn’t to say that I never searched the internet for help on a question but it is becoming so easy for students to completely disengage in their course materials. While they can fill out the worksheet in the moment, the likelihood that they will remember anything in the long term is slim. In BC’s current curriculum where the focus is on teaching curricular competencies and skills rather than content, this can be a concern.
For teachers, I can definitely see the benefits that AI could offer, especially to new teachers. AI can help save enormous amounts of time by creating worksheets and activities for the teacher. Again, while AI has not completely won me over, I am anticipating a time as a new teacher where I am desperate for my load to be lightened and may resort to AI for assistance. I’ve seen teachers using AI to mark students assignments which is where things can get a bit tricky in terms of privacy and integrity. As a music teacher, I predict having less encounters with AI as most of class time is playing instruments in real time. I could see AI playing a role in helping spark ideas for activities and projects.
