By Shivm Mehta

Can ChatGPT and other AI algorithms really solve all of humanity’s problems? That might sound like a futuristic question, but it’s one that’s quickly becoming part of the present—especially for high schoolers growing up in a world with growing climate anxiety and rapid technological change.

Across the globe, climate change is becoming harder and harder to ignore. Heat waves, wildfires, floods, and rising sea levels are turning up the pressure—not just on governments and scientists, but also on business leaders and tech giants. What are they doing to help? Increasingly, many of them are pointing to one answer: artificial intelligence.

In recent years, tech visionaries like Elon Musk, Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT), and others have been promoting AI as a groundbreaking tool that can tackle humanity’s most urgent problems—including the climate crisis. And at first sight, it seems promising. AI has already helped in forecasting weather patterns, optimizing energy usage, and improving climate models. Tools like ChatGPT can help people understand complex scientific topics, write policy proposals, or even brainstorm new climate solutions. Sounds great, right?

But here’s the catch: training and running these massive AI systems takes an enormous amount of energy. A recent article by the San Francisco Examiner dives into this growing concern. It highlights how generative AI, like ChatGPT, requires massive data centers with powerful servers running 24/7. These servers consume huge amounts of electricity—often powered by fossil fuels. In fact, training a single large AI model can emit as much carbon as multiple cars over their entire lifetimes. That’s not exactly eco-friendly.

So what happens when the “solution” becomes part of the problem?

That’s the contradiction that needs to be emphasized: while AI might help us better understand climate change or manage renewable energy, it could also be accelerating the crisis if not used responsibly. And that raises even deeper questions for our generation to think about.

Are tech companies doing enough to measure and reduce the carbon footprint of their AI tools? Are they investing in clean energy to power their data centers—or are they focused more on hype than real sustainability? Should we rely on unproven future technologies to “solve” climate change, or take action now with the tools we already have?

As high schoolers growing up in a climate-concerned world, these are not just philosophical questions. They’re practical, urgent ones. We’re the generation who will be most affected by both climate change and the decisions being made around AI today. That means we have to stay informed—not just about how cool and powerful new technologies are, but also about their hidden costs.

AI is a powerful tool. But like any tool, it depends on how we use it. If we put all our hope in AI while ignoring its environmental impact, we could end up solving one problem by making another worse. Maybe instead of asking, “Can AI fix climate change?” The better question is: “How can we build technology that helps the planet instead of hurting it?”

That’s the challenge—and opportunity—for our generation to think about.

By Snigdha Chakravarti

What if there was a possibility to eliminate human diseases like brain disorders or cancer? What if researchers could control gene expression in mammalian cells to get rid of gene defects? This is where AI DNA regulatory sequences come into play. Dr. Robert Fromel, a researcher who studied AI generated DNA at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, explained how using this tool could provide “new ways of giving instructions to a cell” and direct the cell to behave and develop in a specific way with “unprecedented accuracy.” In essence, customization of synthetic DNA with artificial DNA regulatory sequences would be able to regulate the activity of genes in specific cells. However, one lingering question remains:  how is  an AI model able to generate these favorable patterns in DNA sequences with such a vast amount of genetic information?

A large quantity of data is needed to build this AI model along with countless experiments and studies on enhancers (the portion of the gene that turns it on or off) and transcription factors (proteins that regulate gene expression). Five years since the start of this project, the  AI model  has a humongous enhancer library consisting of 64,000 enhancers and binding sites for 38 transcription factors. Therefore, AI generated enhancers can now induce the exact gene expression patterns needed by specific cells. For example, while some enhancers activate a specific gene in one cell type, they may not activate this same gene in a different cell type; this displays their ability to modulate gene activators and directly switch a gene on or off. Most importantly, this allows for customization of gene expression, ensuring a higher degree of favorable expression. 

Another concept explored through this AI model is negative synergy, where combinations of specific enhancers work together to turn off a gene. Individually, each enhancer can turn on the gene, but when multiple enhancers are utilized, they can hit the off switch for that same gene. The profound impacts of synthetic enhancers (not found in nature) and negative synergy allows AI models to measure the regulation of gene activity in order to create new on and off outcomes.

Lars Velten, a senior author in the study of the AI model, compared the creation of novel gene expression patterns to “a language model for biology.” Velten went on to explain how it was crucial to “understand the language cells speak” in order to “decipher these grammar rules for enhancers so that we [the researcher team] can create entirely new words and sentences.” As a result of the higher extent of variability in gene expression through this model, protein design is advanced too, allowing for different enzymes and antibodies to be made. Due to this, treatments like gene therapy (modification of genes by “correcting” them to treat or prevent a particular disease) can better regulate activity of certain genes in cells. In this way, the side effects of gene therapy are reduced and the efficacy of gene refinement increases for the patient. On the other hand, the modification of a particular gene could negatively impact healthy cells through unnecessary modification of their DNA. Through the development of a system called CODA, or Computational Optimization of DNA Activity, this problem has been combated. CODA makes gene therapy inactive  in healthy cells to limit the treatment to impact only abnormal cells. This has especially proven useful for brain, metabolic, and blood disorders.

AI DNA models seem like a stone’s throw away from treating some of the most prominent diseases like sickle cell anemia, cancer, hemophilia, and muscle dystrophy. By being able to alter gene expression in specific cells, the possibility of a perfect, genetically-favorable outcome unfolds. It is also important to remember, though, that there are limitations to the model, as Dr. Ryan Tewhey, a co-senior author of the study, warns: “Combatting computational models with large-scale experimental approaches is a powerful strategy. However, the models are only as good as the data they learn from. By validating findings, we can quickly identify where improvements can be made.”

By Sophia Byl

In our current industrialized world, where large buildings dominate city skylines and natural landscapes become increasingly populated by humans, neutral colors run rampant. The grays and browns of metal and brick overshadow the more colorful hues of greens, blues, oranges, and the rest of the rainbow as humanity’s ever-expanding touch claims more land for our species. And while it’s true that advertisements in the big cities can provide a nice pop of color, many large companies still tend to forgo pretty colors for functional or uniformity – just look at all of Google’s product logos today versus a couple years ago. A loss of color equates with loss of unique charm, and ultimately, loss of personality.

When we look at the animal kingdom, on the other hand, we see its fate is drastically different. Sure, lots of animals have brown and black fur, but that’s how they’ve evolved to survive in their ecological niches. Neutral colors in human society aren’t a survival skill – they’re a seemingly unavoidable consequence of industrialization and gentrification. Colors are rarely celebrated on a large scale for us, save for festivals like Holi, events like the Northern Lights, with its stunning gradient of greens and blues, and of course, Pride month, where combinations of every color make up the wide diversity of flags we celebrate not just this month, but every month.

 In nature, bright colors serve a beautiful variety of functions, but the primary two are finding a mate and signalling danger to potential predators. Well-known examples of species with colorful males yet drab females include peacocks, mallard ducks, and birds of paradise – mainly birds. Typically, the male with the most vibrant coloring and/or patterning is most likely to win the heart of a potential mate. Thanks to natural selection and evolution, males with less striking colors tend not to pass on their genes, leading to successive generations of birds getting ever brighter thanks to the success of their colorful fathers.

As for animals that use color as a warning (a technique known as aposematism), they are ubiquitous across the animal kingdom. From fish to insects to snakes to even other mammals, a huge number of species take advantage of colors all across the rainbow to signal to anyone who might want to eat them that they taste bad, may be cumbersome to eat, or may even be deadly if ingested. For humans, it’s important to have a rainbow on your plate of fruits and veggies so you get all your necessary nutrients, but for a creature like a hawk or shark, eating a rainbow could just land them in an early grave. 

But some animals have coloration that doesn’t seem to fit into either of these categories – they’re flashy just because they can be. Take, for example, the brilliantly hued fiery-throated hummingbird, with feathers that shift between reds, yellows and blues surrounded by a vibrant green. It’s not poisonous, and because both males and females are colored the same way, the patterning clearly doesn’t serve as a mating tactic either. Therefore, it’s not exactly clear why these little birds are as iridescent as they are. Other animals that exhibit this phenomenon include certain parasitic wasps (the cuckoo wasp and jewel wasp are two prominent example), the coral reef-protecting parrotfish, and the somewhat famous lilac-breasted roller, an African bird that holds the title of most colorful animal in nature. 

Hopefully, humanity can take a couple of lessons from these carefree colorful spirits in nature. You don’t need a reason to make things colorful and bright – do it just because. Maybe we’ll even see some designs popping up reflecting certain creatures in our environment. Would an iridescent green car based on hummingbird feathers be popular? The only way to find out is if we make an effort together to bring more color to our world.