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One Auburn University at Montgomery Management Information Systems professor is hopeful that artificial intelligence will end up being good for humanity in the long run.
David Simmonds, an associate professor of MIS in the College of Business, said he is OK with AI if it is used responsibly. “I am comfortable with the responsible use of AI. AI that looks at the human factor and makes sure that people are going to be served by it.”
Fears about AI taking over in Hollywood jobs, such as with AI actress Tilly Norwood created by comedian and tech entrepreneur Eline Van der Velden are real, as explained by Cody Mello-Klien in Northeastern Global News. There were reports of several agents trying to sign Norwood only added to those worries. Simmonds tries to quell those fears by saying, “It’s not going to take away movie making from the movie makers, it’s going to add another dimension of movie making.”
The other fears about AI are the environmental costs. Miguel Yañez-Barnuevo in his July 25, 2025 article for the Environmental and Energy Study Institute reported that large data centers can take up to five billion gallons of fresh water every day. Simmonds counters by saying Google is a bigger concern. “I can search five hours searching how to do something,” Simmonds said.
He continued that using AI to ask the same question would get him results in five minutes thus saving more energy. Google did double its energy usage from 2020 to 2024 going from 14.4 million megawatt-hours of electricity to 30.8 as said in a July 1, 2025 TechCrunch article by Tim De Chant.
Smaller data centers only use between one to five million megawatts while the medium sized ones are between five to 20 according to an Oct. 2, 2025, article posted to Solartech, a leading solar company that offers affordable clean energy. The differences between those and centers owned by Google are massive.
“I could have saved hours of my time which is hours of data farm search time which was also burning up the environment,” Simmonds added. He closed on the topic of data farms by saying, “Yes, it’s affecting the environment, but it might be affecting the environment less than regular Google searches.”
Simmonds’ hope for AI is to improve humanity by “removing those mundane, dangerous, tedious things that we normally do.”
