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If you’re in charge of an editorial team, you’re used to objections from the rank and file about using AI. “It gets things wrong.” “I don’t know what it’s doing with my data.” “Chatbots only say what you want to hear.” Those are all valid concerns, and I bring them up often in my introduction to AI classes. Each one opens a discussion about what you can do about them, and it turns out to be quite a bit. AI hallucinations require careful thought about where to apply fact-checking and “human in the loop.” Enterprise tools, APIs, and privacy settings can go a long way to protecting your data. And you can prompt the default sycophancy out of AI by telling it to give you critical feedback. There’s another objection to AI that’s been growing, however, and you can’t just prompt your way out of this one. There’s a growing reluctance among some knowledge workers to use AI because of how much energy it consumes and the consequential environmental impact. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/mediacopilot-logo-ss.png","headline":"Media CoPilot","description":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for Media CoPilot. To learn more visit mediacopilot.substack.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}} It’s no secret that, as the number of people using AI grows, the colossal energy footprint of the AI industry increases. It’s true that chips powering AI continually become more efficient, but tools like deep research, thinking models, and agents ensure the demand for energy rises, too. It didn’t help that Sam Altman once said that saying “please” and “thank you” to ChatGPT was needlessly burning millions of extra dollars. Data center construction alone has soared by 40% year over year, raising concerns about not just energy needs but also water consumption. When guilt over AI use turns into pushback In the eyes of those concerned about the environment, these stories and statistics can weigh on a person. Using ChatGPT starts to feel like a betrayal, with every query producing both intelligence and a commensurate amount of guilt. If they feel their employer is pushing them to use these tools anyway, that guilt can bubble up into anger, and even resistance. We’re already starting to see serious objections. Civil servants in the U.K. voiced reluctance to use AI tools because of net zero emissions concerns, The Telegraph reported. Various officials charged with implementing AI-driven initiatives balked, fearing that doing so would conflict with Britains climate commitments. A similar dynamic is playing out at the municipal level in the U.S. Some city IT staff and policymakers in places like California have begun scrutinizing AI projects through a sustainability lens. Many media professionals are concerned too. A couple of weeks ago, I saw at least three journalists bring up the concernat separate eventswhile I was attending the Online News Association conference in New Orleans. And in a recent training I did with a large corporate comms team, I polled the audience: What is your chief concern about using AI, giving them five choices: hallucinations, bias, sycophancy, privacy, or energy use? A full 37% picked energy use. All the evidence points to AI’s energy use developing into a massive PR problemnot just for the industry, but for any business. It’s hard to be “AI forward” if your workers think using it is a huge step backward for climate change. To be clear, this isn’t to say the environmental concerns aren’t validit’s just that they’re simply not my area of expertise. But AI and managing teams are, and it’s clear this issue will be a growing challenge for AI leaders across industries, but especially media, since journalists are on the front lines of reporting AI’s environmental impact. Dos and donts for managing employee concerns So what can company leaders do to address this problem before it gets out of control? That will depend on a number of things: your AI policy, the tools you’re using, and the demographics of your workers. But here is some guidance, divided between dos and don’ts: Do listen carefully to their concerns. Are they objecting because of broad climate implications, or are their concerns more specific? Does it have to do with a specific tool? A local impact? The more detail you have on the issue, the more you will know what you can do about it. Don’t dismiss their concerns, or try to deflect them by pointing to other industries. Yes, cars spew carbon, and there are microplastics in the ocean. But there are also diesel engines and recycling programs. It’s fair to ask what the equivalent is for AI. Do research the problem. In August this year, Google became the first major lab to produce a detailed technical report on the energy, carbon, and water footprint of its AI services, which was an opportunity for the company to brag about its progress, reducing the energy consumed per prompt by 33 times from May 2024 to May 2025. This could be useful information for your team. Don’t encourage mitigating individual use. This might be controversial, but the worst thing an AI-forward worker can do is neglect to use AI to help solve a problem that it can really help with. And that goes for thinking, deep research, and GPT-5 Pro, too. Rather than mitigating individual use of tools, instead . . . Do transition workflows into dedicated tools. If a particular tool or workflow proves useful enough, you should develop it such that it uses the most efficient model possible, which will save on compute costs and the environment. Paying for your own compute is the ultimate incentivizer to throttling unnecessary use. Finally, don’t stop talking about the problem. When you give updates to your team, talk about what you’re doing, as an organization, to address the issue. Ambitious companies might even create an internally visible energy countersomething that would measure not just how much energy you’re using, but also how much compute you’re getting from it, showing how you’re improving efficiency over time. The risk when workers lose faith As AI advances, governed by mammoth trillion-dollar companies and world governments, it’s understandable that individuals may feel they have no agency in how it impacts society, and that includes the planet. It’s important for leaders to recognize that feeling of impotence and flip it into a quest for efficiency and open communication. Organizations that don’t might find that the workers using AI in unauthorized ways aren’t nearly as bad as the ones who refuse to use it at all. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/mediacopilot-logo-ss.png","headline":"Media CoPilot","description":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for Media CoPilot. To learn more visit mediacopilot.substack.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
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Below, coauthors Ulrik Juul Christensen and Tony Wagner share five key insights from their new book, Mastery: Why Deeper Learning Is Essential in an Age of Distraction. Ulrik is founder and CEO of Area9 Lyceum. Formerly a member of the McGraw Hill executive board, he is a frequent keynote speaker and regular contributor to Forbes. He also serves on several boards including the Technical University of Denmark. Tony is senior research fellow at the Learning Policy Institute and former codirector of Harvard Graduate School of Educations Change Leadership Group. He is the bestselling author of Creative Innovators and The Global Achievement Gap. Whats the big idea? In a world where AI can deliver information faster and more accurately than any human, what matters most are the uniquely human skills of critical thinking, communication, creativity, collaboration, and character. This is why we need to replace our outdated, time-based education model with a mastery-based approach. The future of learning depends on a ground-up redesign of our standards, metrics, and methods in the classroom. 1. The core purpose of education should be to develop the skills of mind and heart necessary for productive work, active citizenship, and personal health and well-being Our current education system is far too focused on information retention and recallthings that AI can do far better than any human beingand failing to develop our uniquely human skills. The world simply no longer cares how much students know. What matters far more is what they can do with what they know. A woman named Monique Little did everything society told her to do to succeed. She worked hard in high school, earned a bachelors degree from a good college, and yet, she was stuck in a series of dead-end, low-wage jobs because she lacked marketable skills. In fact, 45% of recent college graduates are underemployed, working in jobs that dont even require a bachelors degree. Monique told us that she had come to see her degrees as no more than certificates of attendance. She told us that she learned far more technical and people skills in 10 weeks at a nonprofit training program called Per Scholas than in all her years of schooling, which is what enabled her to land a great new job as an internet threat analyst for a startup. 2. We must abandon the traditional, time-based model of learning Progress should be based on clear evidence of mastery, not on arbitrary measures, like Carnegie units. The Carnegie unit, which defines a course as 120 hours of seat time, was established more than a century ago. This system, along with its reliance on multiple-choice tests, is fundamentally flawed. It leaves many students behind who simply need more time to master a subject. This system, along with its reliance on multiple-choice tests, is fundamentally flawed. We offer an inspiring alternative: performance assessments. Schools in Allen County, Kentucky, are holding defenses of learning where middle schoolers publicly present and defend their work to community members. This shifts the focus from passive memorization to active demonstration of skill and understanding. This kind of authentic, public assessment not only motivates students but also gives the community a clear, face-to-face sense of what their students can truly do. 3. Tapping into students intrinsic interests and passions motivates them Rote learning and external rewards and punishments (like grades) are not enough and lead to increasing levels of student disengagement and anxiety in schools. We provide a fantastic example from a program called the Center for Advanced Professional Studies, or CAPS. A student named Antonio Linhart entered the program interested in game design. CAPS didnt force him down a predefined path; instead, it helped him apply his passion to real-world projects, including a client project, a community outreach project, and a personal passion project. This process of connecting his interests to meaningful, hands-on work sparked his curiosity and led him to discover new career paths in computer science that he didnt know existed. We also saw this idea in practice at Red Bridge School, where a group of young girls interested in fashion created clothing designs based on their curiosity about roly-poly bugs. This kind of learning is foundational to creativity and mastery of skills. 4. A personalized approach is essential in mastery-based learning Nearly everyone can achieve high levels of mastery, but not everyone learns at the same pace. We bring this idea to life with a powerful story from the world of adult learning, specifically from the Danish road-safety certification organization, VEJ-EU. This program trains a diverse group of workers, from civil engineers with advanced degrees to laborers who didnt finish high school, all of whom must pass the same proficiency-based certification exam. True education is not a race. Instead of a one-size-fits-all class, they developed a personalized, computer-based learning system that allows individuals to progress at their own speed. The program proved that all learners could achieve the required mastery, even though the slowest learners might need 10 times longer than the fastest ones. True education is not a race. Its about providing the time and support necessary for every individual to reach a defined standard of competence. 5. This new model of learning requires educators to be sources of inspiration Teachers must become performance coaches, guides, and mentors who know and support their students. In Finland, a country whose education system is often praised globally, aspiring teachers enter a masters degree program where they spend a full year with a master teacher and a team of peers. They regularly observe each others classes, debrief on their practice, and collaboratively refine their lesson plans. This model, rooted in collaboration and continuous feedback, transforms teaching from an isolated profession into a community of practice dedicated to improvement. This systemic, mastery-based approach to teacher training is what has enabled Finland to consistently achieve excellent and equitable education outcomes. Its a stark contrast to the conventional conference, observe, conference model that is still common in many teacher preparation programs today. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with ermission.
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Youre in a meeting when your boss suggests changing a number to make the quarterly report look stronger. Heads nod. The slides move on. You feel a knot in your stomach: Do you speak up and risk being branded difficult, or stay silent and become complicit? Most people picture defiance as dramatic outbursts. In reality, its often these small, tense moments where conscience collides with compliance. I first saw the power of defiance not in the workplace, but closer to home. My mother was the ultimate people-pleaser: timid, polite, eager to accommodate. Barely 4 feet, 10 inches tall, she put everyone elses needs above her own. But one day, when I was 7, I saw a different side to her. We were walking home from the grocery store in West Yorkshire, England, when a group of teenage boys blocked our path in a narrow alleyway. They hurled racist insults and told us to go back home. My reaction was instantaneous: Stay quiet, avoid conflict, and get past them as quickly as possible. I grabbed my mothers arm, urging her to move with me. But she didnt. My quiet, deferential, never-confrontational mother did something completely different. She stopped, turned, and looked the boys directly in the eyes. Then she asked, calmly but firmly, What do you mean? She wasnt loud or aggressive. And in that moment, she showed me that defiance doesnt always roar, and it can come from the people you least expect. Ive carried these lessons into my work as a physician-turned-organizational psychologist. For decades, Ive studied why people comply, staying silent when they dont want to, and how they can resist wisely. In my book Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes, I offer a framework based on behavioral science research that can help you defy in ways that are intentional, effective, and true to your values. What defiance really is When people think of defiance, they often picture teenagers slamming doors, protesters shouting in the streets, or rebels breaking rules just for the thrill of it. But thats not the kind of defiance I study or the kind that shapes our lives most often. Defiance is not about being oppositional for its own sake. Its about choosing to act in line with your values when there is pressure to do otherwise. That pressure can come from anywhere: a boss urging you to fudge the numbers, a friend nudging you toward something you dont believe in, a culture telling you to stay in your place. Defiance in those moments might be as small as saying no, asking for clarification, or simply pausing instead of rushing along with the group. Other times, it means speaking up, challenging authority, or maybe walking away. Seen this way, defiance isnt a fixed trait that some people are born with and others lack. Its a practice: a skill you can strengthen over time. Some days you might comply, other days you might resist. What matters is that you have the awareness and the tools to make the choice consciously, rather than letting fear or habit decide for you. Why people comply If defiance is so important, why do people so often stay silent? One reason is a psychological process Ive uncovered in my research: insinuation anxiety. It arises when people worry that not complying with another persons wishes may be interpreted as a signal of distrust. Turning down a bosss request to adjust the numbers might feel like youre implying theyre dishonest. To avoid that discomfort, you go along, even when it violates your values. Behavioral science has long documented this pull toward compliance. In the 1960s, for example, psychologist Stanley Milgram showed that ordinary people would administer what they believed were dangerous electric shocks to strangers simply because an authority figure told them to. My own research has shown surprisingly high levels of compliance with obviously bad advice, even when given by a stranger with no consequences for disagreeing. People feel immense social pressure to go along with what others suggest. Thats because if youve never been trained in how to say no, it feels uncomfortable and awkward. A framework for action If compliance is the human default, how can you build the muscle of defiance? In my research, Ive developed a simple actionable guide that I call the Defiance Compass. Like a navigation aid, it orients you in difficult situations by asking three questions: Who am I? What are the core values that matter most to me? What type of situation is this? Is it safe to resist? Will it have a positive impact? What does a person like me do in a situation like this? How can I take responsibility and act in a way thats consistent with my identity and values? Asking these questions shifts defiance from a gut reaction to a conscious practice. And heres whats important: That third question (What does a person like me do?) circles back to the first (Who am I?), because how you act again and again becomes who you are. Defiance doesnt always mean open confrontation. Sometimes it means asking a clarifying question, buying time, or quietly refusing. It can mean speaking up or walking away. The key is to start small, practice regularly, and anchor your choices in your values. Like any skill, the more you practice, the more natural it becomes. Why defiance matters now Defiance may be risky, but its never been more relevant. At work, employees are pressured to meet targets at any cost. In politics, citizens face waves of misinformation and polarization. In everyday life, people struggle to set healthy boundaries. Across all these contexts, the temptation to comply for the sake of comfort is strong. Thats why learning to defy strategically matters. It protects personal integrity, strengthens institutions, and helps sustain democracy. And it doesnt require being loud or confrontational. Of course, not every act of defiance is safe or guaranteed to make a difference. Sometimes it comes at real personal cost and some people still choose to act even when the impact isnt certain: Think of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat, or Colin Kaepernick taking a kee. In those moments, the act itself becomes the message. Both of those individuals were deeply connected to their values and the assessment is personal: What feels worth the risk to one person might not to another. Defiance does require practice: noticing when values are at stake, pausing before you nod along, and choosing actions that align with who you want to be. Each act of consent, compliance, or defiance shapes not just your story but the stories of our societies. If you practice defiance, and teach it and model it, you can imagine a different type of society. You can start to envision a world where, in that same alleyway from my childhood, one of the boys will step forward and tell his friends, Thats not okay. Let them pass. Sunita Sah is a professor of management and organizations at Cornell University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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