Where Does AI Leave a Footprint? Children's Reasoning About AI's Environmental Costs

Abstract

Two of the most socially consequential issues facing today's children are the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the rapid changes to the earth's climate. Both issues are complex and contested, and they are linked through the notable environmental costs of AI use. Using a systems thinking framework, we developed an interactive system called Ecoprompt to help children reason about the environmental impact of AI. EcoPrompt combines a prompt-level environmental footprint calculator with a simulation game that challenges players to reason about the impact of AI use on natural resources that the player manages. We evaluated the system through two participatory design sessions with 16 children ages 6-12. Our findings surfaced children's perspectives on societal and environmental tradeoffs of AI use, as well as their sense of agency and responsibility. Taken together, these findings suggest opportunities for broadening AI literacy to include systems-level reasoning about AI's environmental impact.

Figures (9)

• Figure 1: Footprint Calculator interface, including (1) user prompt entry box, (2) an "Ask AI" button that submits the prompt to the model, (3) an output box in which the AI's response is displayed, (4) a display of the last prompt's estimated water, carbon, and energy costs, and (5) a display of the total water, carbon, and energy costs across the session, with status-bar style indicators of cumulative use.
• Figure 2: Farm game interface showing (1) initial welcome screen, (2-4) gameplay across three levels. In each level, players face various challenges. For example, in (4), pest attacks introduce critical decision points where players can use AI to make crop protection more manageable as levels progress.
• Figure 3: Tutorial illustrating the AI query lifecycle and its environmental consequences in EcoPrompt, demonstrating how a user prompt travels from a personal device to a data center that consumes electricity, resulting in carbon emissions.
• Figure 4: An illustration of crops growing as a result of players' attention to planting, watering, and harvesting them.
• Figure 5: An illustration of the game panel at the start of the first level, showing (1) the sidebar displaying the lake health with a status log communicating changes to the player, (2) the main array of tools available to the player, including the planting and watering tools, and (3) the inventory and notifications panel.