Reflection on Progress: Paper, Ink, and Carbon Footprint
I saw this photograph today. It reminded me of my dad’s office where he used to take me when I was nowhere else to be put during school holidays and other disruptions to normalcy. I was about 8 to 9 years old and the place looked as magical to me as it was important to my dad. Therefore, it is not a surprise that I feel tinglings of nostalgia when I see photographs like the one below.
However, would any of those guys in the photo feel the same? Given the option to replace paper and ink with keyboard and mouse, what would they choose? A simple click on the undo button instead of redrawing the whole sketch?
Is AI to us what computers were to them?
Technology made our lives easier, no doubt. The rate of progress sped up, but there is a catch to it.
Back then, the work was slower, more manual, and often painstaking. Yet in a strange way, it demanded less from the world around us. Human energy powered the process. Late nights at the drafting table, careful redraws, and physical collaboration in offices filled with paper and ink. The pace was deliberate, but the environmental cost was relatively small.
Today, we pride ourselves on efficiency. With computers and now AI, tasks that once took hours can be done, undone or redone in seconds. But this progress comes with a hidden cost: endless computing cycles, server farms running day and night, and the massive energy demand of digital infrastructure. What once required human labour now requires energy, which we still obtain mostly from burning fossil fuels (unless in France, which generates roughly 70% of its electricity from uranium fission).
Sometimes I wonder whether the efficiency we gain as individuals Today may, paradoxically, be purchased at the expense of environmental damage and a growing carbon footprint. In other words at the expense of our future.
About the author
Martin Tutko is a product designer by trade and a part-time philosopher by hobby. Thinking, researching and doing design since 1998. And as of 2023 also sharing and writing about some of my experiences as a product designer 🧑🏻💻🌟
