Editor’s Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.

Generation Z, a population defined by our upbringing into a world with ubiquitous access to technology and higher levels of stress and anxiety, is a generation highly connected yet largely troubled.

The first generation to grow up native to the digital age, technology has permeated every aspect of our lives: our education, entertainment, social interactions, job opportunities, politics, therapy — we’re all impacted throughout our most formative years. While older generations view this accessibility as a luxury compared to their analog upbringing, many Gen Z have a perspective clouded by the consequences we’ve faced from unregulated and universal technological integration.

As a new era of artificial intelligence begins to overshadow the transformative era of smartphones, the disproportionate effects of this new technology unapologetically emerge between differing generations and classes.

Whether that be the implementation of automation and robotics that replaced factory workers in the late ’90s, the rise of gig platforms like Uber that redefined stable employment or algorithm-driven platforms, such as TikTok, continued to decrease younger generations’ attention spans, media-literacy and self-worth; each new wave of innovation proved progressive for some and precarious for others.

AI’s dominance reflects many of the same issues of previous technological integrations but at a far faster pace and with significantly higher stakes for a much broader population. 

This is why positively embracing and brazenly using AI is a privilege reserved for a small sum of older, white, upper-class people. Its consequence of inequality exists for a multitude of reasons, the most prevalent being its inflicted environmental injustice, its continuation of an undue burden on young people and its ability to hollow out the middle class. 

AI data centers are expected to use 731 million to 1,125 million cubic meters of water per year and emit carbon dioxide levels equivalent to adding 5 million to 10 million cars by 2030. Though the environment should be of concern to all who inhabit the Earth, concern doesn’t cross the desks of those who buy a new house after a wildfire, those guaranteed clean water and, especially, those who live in the neighborhoods of bureaucrats that keep them far enough away from data centers to not see an increase in energy bills.

The effects of these environmental changes disproportionately fall onto lower-income people and those in historically Black and Brown neighborhoods. AI data centers warrant more water crises like Flint, Michigan, and further implications of redlining and urban heat. 

The current fight against AI data centers in Memphis’ Boxtown neighborhood — a predominantly Black community — is a prime example of how AI perpetuates environmental racism. Elon Musk’s supercomputer found a home several miles away for its 35 gas turbines, which pump a 79% increase in nitrogen dioxide concentration levels around the data center. It left surrounding residents with alarming health risks and heavy-handed energy bills in an already marginalized neighborhood.

AI isn’t introducing a new harm; it’s reinforcing the same existing patterns of injustice at a rate and scale we should have never ignored. Prompting ChatGPT is not so appetizing for the people whose health and financial standing is at grave risk. 

On top of this, AI’s integration reminds young people of social media’s deregulation that left us mentally scared and socially anxious. While tech CEOs marveled in their success, and Boomers found easier outlets to connect with old friends, us digital natives lost the proper ability to socialize in physical spaces, further exposing us to misinformation and obscene content at impressionable ages.

We are not just native to a world of tech — we are native to the lasting effects of unregulated advancement. We understand better than older generations how shifts in socializing and information processing take an irreversible toll. Viewing AI through the same negligent lens that adults, tech executives and government officials viewed — and even encouraged — smartphones and social media is a privilege Zoomers don’t have. 

It is Gen Z’s duty to halt the succession of technology’s burden for Generation Alpha. AI is already so embedded in how they learn, consume information and interact with the world. Their instant access to AI-generated answers makes their education less about critical thinking and more about reaching outcomes as quickly as possible. Even their content consumption becomes more short-form through AI-influenced media, introducing a more severe version of issues that Gen Z faces — attention span, media literacy and authenticity — at an even earlier age.

By the skin of our teeth, Gen Z gained the ability to critically think, analyze research and form our own human-generated answers; we should not be the last generation with that privilege. And while AI’s consequences fall hardest on younger and marginalized communities, the decision-making power behind artificial intelligence remains concentrated in the hands of those least affected by its risks.

In discourse with business executives and experienced white-collar workers, there is no questioning the value of AI. Their values depend on increasing profitability, maximizing efficiency and producing more for less — ideas that only a small percentage of humans can hold. “AI will find a solution for itself,” cries the retired Baby Boomer — but at what cost until we get there?

These elite values depreciate, even for those who may feel similarly, when technology’s foundation of accessibility becomes exclusivity. While companies can use AI to increase efficiency, at what point does the race to profitable service lose its cause when increasing unemployment rates endanger the class of people who can pay to extinction?

We have seen what unchecked technology can do to our minds, our labor and our communities. While there’s no questioning that AI will shape our future, will we demand a version of it that does not come at the expense of everyone else?

Reach Caroline Studdert at letters@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.