I talked about this in Quick Queries 95, but I feel strongly about this issue, so I wanted to post it here as well, and open it up for discussion in the Captain's Log.

I recently received an email from John up in Windsor, Ontario, expressing concerns about artificial intelligence, data centers, electricity consumption, water usage, and the environmental impact of all this new technology. I'll put John's email in the footnotes below.

John and I actually agree on a lot of this, but we come to very different conclusions.

His concern is that AI uses a tremendous amount of electricity. Data centers consume huge amounts of power and water, and all of that has environmental consequences. On that point, I completely agree. Those are legitimate concerns, and they're concerns that governments, regulators, and the companies building these systems need to take very seriously.

Where I disagree is when people say the answer is to simply stop using the technology.

To me, that's like saying, "It's 1995. The internet uses too much electricity. Stop using email and go back to fax machines." Or saying, "Cars consume fuel and create pollution, so let's stick with horses."

History has shown us over and over again that once a useful technology arrives, it doesn't go away. The printing press didn't go away. The steam engine didn't go away. Computers didn't go away. The internet didn't go away. AI is now part of that list.

The question isn't whether we're going to use it. The question is how we use it responsibly.

I absolutely believe there should be environmental standards. I think data centers should be efficient. I think companies should be held accountable for their environmental impact. I think governments should be investing in cleaner energy and protecting the environment. On that, we agree 100 percent.

I don't think the climate problem is going to be solved because Richard Rost turns off his laptop at bedtime. Yes, my computer uses electricity. Yes, your computer uses electricity. But the solutions to climate change are much larger than individual people unplugging their devices at night.

This is a societal challenge that requires better infrastructure, cleaner energy production, smarter regulation, and long-term planning.

As a solo entrepreneur, I'm a one-man band. I use AI to help me research topics, organize ideas, check my work, and create a better product for my students and viewers. It doesn't replace me. It doesn't make my videos for me, and it never will. It simply helps me do my job better.

In the same way that accountants adopted calculators, engineers adopted computers, and businesses adopted spreadsheets, this is another tool that people are going to have to learn how to use.

Frankly, what worries me most isn't humanity. It isn't my kids and grandkids. Humans are incredibly adaptable. We've survived ice ages, wars, pandemics, and all kinds of environmental changes. What worries me most are the species that can't adapt as quickly. The wildlife. The shrinking habitats. The ecosystems that disappear. And yes, the penguins losing the ice they depend on.

That's the stuff that keeps me up at night. Once a species is gone, it's gone. That's why I think environmental protection matters so much. Not just for humans, but for the rest of the planet.

To be a little political for a moment, I'm very pro-science, and one of the things that concerns me right now is seeing environmental protections that took decades to put in place being weakened or dismantled. I don't care whether it's a Democrat or a Republican doing it. If the science says a regulation is protecting the environment, then I'll generally support it.

I understand that regulations cost money. Businesses don't like regulations because compliance costs money. But sometimes that's the price of living in a civilized society. If a company has to spend more to reduce pollution, protect water resources, or lower its environmental impact, then that's money well spent. Yes, some of those costs eventually get passed on to consumers. That's reality.

If ChatGPT cost me $50 a month instead of $20 a month because OpenAI had to meet stricter environmental standards, use cleaner energy, or offset more of its carbon footprint, I'd pay it. I'd rather spend a little more and know we're being responsible than save a few bucks and pretend the problem doesn't exist.

To me, that's the real conversation we should be having. Not whether we should abandon technology, but how we make sure technology is developed and used responsibly. Let's have serious conversations about the cost of AI. Let's make sure we're building these systems properly. Let's push for cleaner energy and better environmental stewardship.

I don't think the answer is to pretend that technology doesn't exist or to refuse to use it. The genie is already out of the bottle. The better approach is to learn how to use it wisely and make sure it's developed responsibly.

Before someone asks what any of this has to do with Microsoft Access, quite a bit actually.

I've already done several TechHelp videos showing how to integrate AI into Access applications. We've looked at connecting to AI services, generating content, analyzing data, and automating different kinds of tasks. Honestly, what I've shown so far is just scratching the surface.

One of the future courses on my roadmap is a full Microsoft Access and AI course. My SQL Server series is still my top priority at the moment, but AI is definitely something I want to spend more time teaching.

Whether we like it or not, AI is becoming another tool available to developers. Just like we learned VBA, SQL, ODBC, web services, and all the other technologies that came along over the years, Access developers are going to have opportunities to use AI in their applications too.

While I respect the concerns about environmental responsibility, regulation, and sustainability, I don't think the answer is to ignore technology. My approach is to learn it, understand it, teach it, and help people use it responsibly. Whether we're talking about AI, the internet, computers, databases, airplanes, or whatever comes next, the people who learn how to use new tools effectively will generally do a lot better than the people who pretend those tools don't exist.

As for me using AI to generate images, I'm sorry, but that genie is out of the bottle too. I love this technology. Being able to create custom illustrations, funny scenes, and visual examples for my videos and title slides in just a few minutes is amazing. I can't wait to see where it goes next.

I will never use AI to completely replace my videos. I still like making my own content. I like teaching. I love recording these videos. I like the way I produce them. AI images are just another tool in my toolbox, like a camera, a microphone, or a video editing application.

If this technology has environmental costs that need to be addressed, then that's something society and our governments are going to need to work on. I'll continue supporting leaders who take environmental issues seriously.

But asking individual people to stop using useful technology isn't the solution. History shows that once a tool becomes genuinely useful, people are going to use it. The better approach is to figure out how to make it cleaner, more efficient, and more sustainable.

LLAP
RR

John's Email

Hi Rick,

As an old school geek like myself you remember the days of actually turning off device at end-of-day.  Dumb terminal, PC, monitor, whatever...

We've already gone too far away from that... Servers and communications equipment consuming electricity and generating heat 24x7... and too many of us leaving our PC's and monitors on overnight.   That in itself has to stop.

But now AI has come along and is amplifying the problem exponentially, plus, adding horrid levels of water use to the problem.

Please stop using it. I know it's awfully easy to see AI as the next step forward in tech, but it's going to make our planet uninhabitable for humans way too soon.  I need to live here for a while more, and so do my kids, and so do you.

We can already do a week's work of the labor our grandparents did in just an hour or so. Do we need to be *more* 'productive'?   How fast is fast enough?

I prefer trees, walking or biking to work and knowing I did what I could to give my kids a chance. Turn off the tech at end-of-day and go actually experience face-to-face human contact.

Plus I prefer the real images of you, not the trekkie redo's.