AI and Health

Assessing effects of AI's environmental impacts on human health

AI is expanding unprecedentedly. In doing so it creates implications - both positive and negative - for people and the planet. That has different effects on groups and individuals, increasing inequity in various ways. In this study we are interested to understand the negative implications AI has on the environment, and how these, in turn, affect people’s and the planet’s health.

Study aim

We collect and analyze empirical evidence of how AI adversely impacts human and planetary health. We use a variety of methods to do so:

• We interview people from various stakeholder groups to assess a variety of views on the topic. Foremost we speak to those whose health is affected by the environmental consequences of AI — for instance, those living near data centers or other infrastructure that AI runs on. We also speak with health, judicial, and political experts and journalists working on the topic.
• We scope the academic literature to identify which associations between AI and health impacts are being made, and which are neglected.
• We follow conversations online that foreground the environmental — and, by extension, health — impacts of AI, such as data center resistance movements.
• We visit data centers and speak with people working to reduce their environmental costs, discussing the promises and limits of those efforts.

Get involved in this work

Is your health affected by AI’s environmental impacts? Are you a journalist, politician, or lawyer working on the topic? Are you a health expert, or a data center expert? We would love to include your views in our study! Please reach out to Theresa, our study coordinator, to contribute your story to our dataset: [email protected]