New Delhi, Sept. 27 -- Recently, social media users around the world were swept up in a trend of revisiting the 1980s using AI-generated images of themselves. As with the Studio Ghibli trend, this too was treated like harmless fun, though its unseen impact is far more serious.

In the case of the Ghibli makeover, issues of copyright and plagiarism led the protests against public misuse of AI tools. Less talked about was the cost of energy, water and other resources needed to generate the images. Following the virality of the 1980s trend, however, the environmental footprint of such exercises has been more widely flagged by activists, AI ethicists and media outlets.

While the numbers may vary (depending on the model, complexity of the tas...