In The Challenge of Justice, my professor asked how we felt about AI before asking our names.
We concluded by discussing how AI impacts community and its potential to be weaponized against migrants. We’re familiar with AI critiques relating to integrity and critical thinking. The overwhelming sentiment, however, is that using AI “correctly” as a resource is always beneficial. GenAI can streamline to-do lists, edit emails, or produce flashcards.
Previous op-eds reinforce the inevitability narrative surrounding AI.
Ethical concerns can’t be limited to pedagogy or productivity. AI is a skyrocketing industry with little profit. Some researchers insist it’ll take some time before AI yields immense revenue, but at what cost?
LLMs like ChatGPT don’t utilize raw data, and “data labelling” requires human labor. OpenAI, Meta, and Google enlist people in the Global South, like Indians and Venezuelans. These “humans in the loop” are factory workers or independent contractors earning $2 per hour or less. Kenyan data labellers described their “modern-day slavery” in an open letter to President Joe Biden.
Most people know AI consumes lots of energy, but not how much. There are no official public records for American AI data centers due to “trade secrets.” In 2028, GenAI could consume as much energy as 22 percent of U.S. households. AI’s unique computer chips drain drinking water for cooling. Queries add up, especially in “extreme water stress” areas. Microsoft planned for 280 buildings in Maricopa County, Ariz., to each use 1 million gallons daily.
AI data centers rely on diesel generators. One emits hundreds more nitrogen oxides per unit of electricity than well-controlled gas power plants. They’re often in residential areas, so “digital smog” most impacts economically disadvantaged locals. Incessant droning from centers creates noise pollution, adding to public health concerns. Still, states continue giving tech companies tax breaks, not wanting to lose the AI race.
Political philosopher John Rawls argued for distributive justice, where every citizen has basic rights, social structures must provide equal opportunity, and injustices must benefit the disadvantaged. We can spot injustices using his framework. Residents should have more input on their neighborhoods. Workers deserve fair payment. Citizens should understand how private companies use their data and affect their health.
In Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, journalist Karen Hao likens AI companies to empires, due to their extensive influence and “quasi-religious” search for an “AI god.” Hao suggested OpenAI overestimates its capabilities.
They hope to spend $1 trillion in the next few years, but crossed $20 billion in annualized revenue last year. America is heading toward recession, but $72–125 billion spent yearly on AI created a “bubble.” If big tech fails to deliver soon, it would mean disaster. By 2030, even with AI-related savings, those companies might be $800 billion short. I can’t help but think the money private investors pour in would be better spent supporting less risky industries.
The AI industry has a troubling power dynamic where companies use an abundance of limited resources and mistreat people with little consequence. Even if you believe you’re using GenAI responsibly, the development and systematic applications of AI remain fundamentally unjust and dangerous. Unless we mandate accountability and transparency through legislation, we remain oblivious.
I’m privileged to stand against AI. In the humanities, AI-generated content is deeply frowned upon. As an English major, I believe AI models treat language like a watered-down commodity, instead of spotlighting how the written word informs and transforms us in hyper-specific ways.
Others expect hires to understand AI. The Yale Budget Lab noted some fields are more subject to high usage, like computing and administrative work. Students in my justice class shared that companies they interned for pressured employees to use GenAI. There’s a cruel paradox in feeling AI is forced upon us while simultaneously thinking we need it for “survival.” My dad worries that I’m falling behind by not using AI to my advantage. Yet, he avoids his company’s AI tools, feeling like they’d ultimately replace him.
The stakes are high enough to consider thinking beyond reform. GenAI trains us to choose convenience. Offloading even innocuous tasks is still surrendering agency. Do we need chatbots, or are we victims of industry-manufactured hype? What do we sacrifice when giving in?
In my justice class, I learned about Catholic social teaching on universal justice. Even as a Protestant, I found its themes luminous: affirming human life as sacred, dignity for workers, calling for community, stewarding God’s creation, advocating for the vulnerable, upholding rights, and fostering solidarity.
As University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., wrote in his President’s Message, BC students should consider how they will be “shaping the future with vision, justice, and charity” and have “concern for all of the human family.” We’re expected to approach ethics with regard for the world we’ve already inherited.
AI is not the only corrupt industry, but the imperative is recognizing AI as a justice issue with which the public is concerned. Otherwise, we’re perpetuating a one-sided narrative and acting solely based on potential personal gain.
Our futures will be affected by systematic applications of AI. AI supercharges surveillance, and ICE increasingly relies on controversial AI facial-recognition and phone-hacking software. At home and abroad, military interest in AI demonstrates a shocking willingness to endanger lives unnecessarily.
Though systemic change is most crucial to resolving injustices, each person has the power to opt in or out. Large-scale change never gains traction unless we shift the conversation.
If you often query ChatGPT, its ubiquity and quick turnaround make it hard to stop, even if you experience cognitive dissonance. Increased individual AI usage is a reaction to our culture’s insistence that we need it for everything. Is it because of perfectionism, procrastination, or disconnection? No chatbot fixes root problems. Messiness and uncertainty are expected in college—so are sustained attention and curiosity.
As global citizens, we must understand how excessive GenAI usage renders us less critical of profit-obsessed corporations and less caring toward the disempowered. As an intellectual community, we should look past thought-terminating clichés, like the “efficiency” mantra. It would be an injustice if we didn’t.
