Do these 2 things if you're worried about AI and the environment

Do these 2 things if you're worried about AI and the environment

From How I Work by Amantha Imber

August 9, 2026 · 16 min

About this episode

The episode explores the environmental impact of AI compared to other activities and offers practical advice for individuals concerned about sustainability.

There is a quiet guilt a lot of people carry every time they open ChatGPT. Somewhere between the headlines about data centres and the vague sense that AI is somehow worse for the planet than everything else we do without a second thought, it becomes easier to just feel bad than to actually work out whether that guilt is warranted.  Nobody hands you the comparison points. Is a heavy day of prompting worse than a night of Netflix? Worse than a round of golf? Nobody says.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I go looking for the real figures. You will hear how an hour of heavy AI use stacks up against an hour of Netflix, why American golf courses use far more water than AI data centres, and the two things you can personally do that make a genuine difference, including one that has nothing to do with AI at all.  What you'll learn:  How an hour of heavy AI use actually compares to an hour of Netflix  Why golf courses use more water than AI data centres, and why nobody is calling to ban golf  What separates the environmental cost of training AI from simply using it  What…

People in this episode

Host: Amantha Imber

Guest: Neo Aplin

Topics covered

  • AI and the environment
  • sustainability
  • technology impact
  • personal responsibility
  • productivity tools

Keywords

  • AI
  • environment
  • sustainability
  • Netflix
  • golf courses
  • productivity
  • mental load
  • workflows

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: ChatGPT, Netflix, American golf courses

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