Did you use AI today? Did you use Google Maps or check your email? Well, if you did, you used AI. This Technology has been apart of our lives even if we didn’t know it. According to a Hubspot survey conducted in 2021, 63% of respondents didn’t even know they were using AI technologies.

AI is used in healthcare, finance, retail, and manufacturing, but it’s also used in your social media, online shopping, and texts. AI helps you filter your emails into categories and eliminate unwanted spam. AI also helps you find the best route, predict your arrival time, and analyze your traffic to help you get to our destination.

You utilize AI more than you think and can experience benefits and disadvantages from everyday use. Some beneficial factors of AI are; that it provides unbiased decisions, time-saving qualities, reduces human error, and digital assistance. AI also helps businesses by sending automated text messages or phone calls. AI can also help doctors treat and diagnose patients even from the comfort of their own homes. AI also does repetitive and mundane tasks, leaving humans with tasks that have a higher value.

Is AI all that it is cracked up to be? While AI can have incredible benefits, this technology has some downsides. As AI has become more widespread and incorporated into our everyday lives from our social media feeds, healthcare, education, and cars. The technology brings into question how it impacts our mental health and our well-being. The use of AI is skyrocketing and according to Grand View Research AI is expected to explode 37% from 2023 to 2030. AI is impacting how you do everything in your life including your job.

AI is causing concern for many people who fear their jobs could be replaced by a computer or robot. According to the American Psychological Association’s 2023 Work in America survey 38% of workers are worried that AI may make their job or job duties outdated. This is causing anxiety for many people and is having an impact on the rest of their lives and  51% of people said that their work is harming their mental health. The impact of AI is causing many workers to feel burnt-out at their jobs and causing a lack of motivation. AI also might be linked to increased workloads and expectations causing higher anxiety for people in the workplace.

AI can also have positive impacts on your mental health. About 85% of people with mental health conditions often don’t receive treatment due to provider shortages and  according to WHO’s Mental Health Atlas, there are 13 mental health workers per 100,00 people. The shortage is only more dire due to the 25%-27% rise in people who suffer from depression and anxiety due to COVID-19 and the pandemic according to the World Health Organization. Due to the shortage of mental health workers, there is a growing interest in the use of AI instead of people for therapy.

According to the Oliver Wyman Forum Survey, 36% of Gen Zers and Millennials said they would be interested in the use of AI for mental health, and 51% of people from India said they were interested as well. As the idea of AI becomes more incorporated into our lives including therapy, some people show concern towards AI and the negative impact it could have on our mental health. According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, AI has been providing harmful content surrounding eating disorders 41% of the time. This can unfavorably impact people who may suffer from an eating disorder or other mental health conditions.

Also, a worry is whether AI can be as empathetic or caring as a human and whether it will impact the care given. Another impact is AI algorithms that tailor your experience on various social media platforms may lead to feelings of isolation, anxiety, and depression. The algorithms manipulate your feed to curate your media to show what it thinks you want to see, which can negatively affect your mental well-being. Not only can AI impact your well-being but it impacts where you live and the place you call home, Earth.

While AI systems can be a great tool for a quick answer the planet is greatly impacted by the effects that AI produces. AI systems generate 2.5 to 3.7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. This technology is causing harm to our planet and is increasing the number of greenhouse gases emitted into our atmosphere. AI systems also need to be trained which calls for a lot of computing power and electricity leading to a single AI system’s training to emit 626,000 pounds of CO2  which is equivalent to emissions of 5 cars over their lifetime according to researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Also according to a more recent study, training an AI called GPT-3 resulted in carbon emissions of 502 metric tons of carbon, which is equal to driving 112 gasoline-powered cars for a year.

It’s also hard to calculate the impact that AI will have on climate change due to the differing amounts of computing power needed for different types of AI.  AI also uses lots of natural resources to run including water to cool its systems and the data centers create hazardous materials like lead and mercury which are harmful to the environment. In response to this AI does have the potential to worsen the impacts of climate change. But there is still hope and ways AI can be better for the environment. Companies can be more transparent about their carbon footprint to compare the efficiency of their software and transitioning to renewable energy sources like wind and solar can play a vital role in combating the effects of AI on climate change.

While you may feel uncertain about AI or use it in your everyday life, it should be used responsibly and with caution. Even though the idea of AI has existed since the 1950s, AI and its program is still developing, learning from data and its computational power is continuously getting better. Even though it is still developing it continues to have very concerning dangers that worry many people. Some dangers include criminal activity like making scam phone calls or voice cloning, and deep fakes.  Beside the dangers of AI, there are still beneficial factors and negatives factors you should consider while using the technology.