Last month after a long school day, I sat on the couch with my mother. She’s a teacher so she’s often busy with work-related projects. That day in particular, she was searching for an educational video about how to use addition to show her first grade students. However, the more I watched her search, the more I noticed something off about every video she clicked on. Almost every single video used an AI tool in some way.
Whether it be the intro, the script, or even the presentation as a whole. Some aspect of every video she watched had computer generated content embedded within it, almost as if it were “hidden” from the viewers. From that day forward, I was always skeptical of artificial intelligence. I mean, was all this usage really necessary? So, I took a deep dive into how AI has influenced our everyday lives in order to finally answer some questions that had been on my mind for a while now. Should artificial intelligence be so prevalent in our daily lives? What are the pros and cons of AI usage?
| POSITIVES |
It’s no secret that AI has had some overwhelmingly positive effects on society. Hundreds of complex tasks have been made infinitely more manageable with tools like ChatGPT or Gemini. Things like coding efficiency, content creation and even healthcare have been improved by artificial intelligence. Not to mention just how many people rely on AI on a daily basis. In this day and age, I can almost guarantee that almost every person you speak to has used AI for a tedious task at least once, especially students. Additionally, it’s obvious that AI is only going to improve over time. Computer scientists all across the world are working to make AI even more intelligent than it already is. So, does that settle it? Are there no real negative effects of AI? To be direct – no, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Let me explain.
| NEGATIVES |
As AI grows in intelligence, it brings with it a multitude of downsides along with its constant usage. For starters, AI directly contributes to the dwindling freshwater supply. As millions of prompts are generated every day, the data centers which create AI responses get frequently overheated. AI companies combat this problem by using fresh, drinkable water to cool data centers down. As of 2026, according to the National Geographic Society, just over 1% of water on earth is actually drinkable by humans. People are experiencing constant water shortages already, therefore AI is clearly compounding this already existing universal crisis.
Additionally, AI is indirectly contributing to the loss of jobs all around the world. As we know, the main benefit of AI is that it can quickly complete tedious tasks that would take a significantly longer amount of time for a human. While this may sound like a positive thing, this means that AI can completely replace people’s jobs. Companies may utilize AI in their workforce instead of hiring real people, as it saves them money. Obviously, this will make many jobs much harder to acquire. Some job fields that are frequently replaced with AI include Computer Scientists, Graphic Designers and – unfortunately – artists. I interviewed my brother, Jack Basil, on AI usage as he is an avid artist. He believes the usage of AI art takes away from human creativity, and makes art pieces feel soulless. “Human struggle is a large part of what makes art great,” Jack stated. “Without any sort of hard work, what makes art special?”
|WHAT DO I DO?|
Now that a great deal of positives and negatives have been presented about AI, we may finally answer the question for sure: should we continue to use artificial intelligence? To keep it brief – daily AI usage is not necessary. While I believe AI can improve the world in various circumstances, a vast majority of its usage really isn’t essential. Whatever you believe you need to generate can’t possibly be as vital as all the water being wasted across our planet that we all live and thrive on. In short, the next time you need to embellish your writing or generate a picture for something mundane, try and stick to things that you can create yourself!
