A new study shows that AI data centers are sucking up unbelievable stores of water, perhaps even more than the global water bottle industry. In addition, the study estimates that these centers pollute the environment more than the city of New York does in a single year. Justine Calma writes in The Verge,

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AI created as much carbon pollution this year as New York City and guzzled up as much H20 as people consume globally in water bottles, according to new estimates.

The study paints what’s likely a pretty conservative picture of AI’s environmental impact since it’s based on the relatively limited amount of data that’s currently available to the public. A lack of transparency from tech companies makes it harder to see the potential environmental toll of AI becoming a part of everyday tasks, argues the author of the study who’s been tracking the electricity consumption of data centers used for AI and crypto mining over the years.

Looking behind the buzz

The study has arrived in lieu of Time Magazine’s decision to elect a number of AI company CEOs as its annual “Person of the Year.” 2025 was all about artificial intelligence and its surrounding buzz, what all it might genuinely be capable of, which jobs it may replace, how it purports to make life easier and more efficient, and how, if abused, it can serve as a frightful substitute for human relationships and community. Already, people are opting for AI girlfriends or boyfriends over real romantic connections, and other data suggests that heavy ChatGPT use is associated with cognitive decline. The crisis of AI plagiarism continues to bedevil higher education (along with high schools), and tech giants and politicians seem to never tire of AI’s promise and our demanding need to stay at the technology’s cutting edge.

AI’s environmental impact, however, is starting to turn more heads, and one gets the impression simply by scrolling X that many people are simply growing tired of the hype. While the tech industry touts AI as the next massive step forward in economic progress, the resistance to its overreach is evident. 2025 may have been the year of unbounded AI optimism, but perhaps 2026 will prove to be the year of a collective kind of reckoning with AI’s real uses and limits.

The pushback may be strongest in the arts and humanities. AI-generated texts and images are inundating the internet with “slop,” the term frequently used to indict AI-generated content. Perhaps the more this stuff permeates our feeds, the more we may want to log off, blink our eyes, and opt for more tangible means of connection with the real world and real human beings. Perhaps we will hunger for more authentic expressions of human creativity, visiting museums, reading books, holding conversations. Perhaps we will strive more to be humans who use technology wisely instead of willingly subjecting ourselves to its excesses.