How it's Effecting the Environment
Generative AI usage doesn’t just have an effect on people’s cognitive abilities, but also on the environment its datacenters are built in. According to The Guardian’s Dana Kerr (2026), Elon Musk’s xAI datacenters Colossus 1 and 2, based in Memphis Tennessee, had been illegally operating 35 gas turbines to operate the facilities. xAI had reportedly taken advantage of a loophole within the county that had allowed the use of the turbines without a permit so long as the turbines did not stay in place for over 364 days (Kerr 2026).
The citizens of Memphis had no idea the data center was even being built until after the land had been purchased and the construction had started (More Perfect Union 2025). City and state officials had quietly approved of the construction of the datacenter, knowing that it would require egregious amounts of energy to operate. They did so under the assumption that it would bring Memphis into the future of innovation (More Perfect Union 2025). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally declared that the turbine usage was not exempt from needing permits to continue operations, later xAI went on to get permits for only 15 of the turbines they had been using, and are now only operating 12 of their original turbines (Kerr 2026). The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) further dug into the power usage that generative AI has, and the impact that had as well. MIT even went on to say that the power usage to train the AI models didn’t decrease after the AI was ready for use (Zewe 2025).
