AI Can Water Ideas

Recently, while procrastinating finding a blog post idea, I was trying to figure out how to keep my plants alive while I was gone for winter break. I have too many to take home. While I love that my room looks like a greenhouse, winter break poses a real threat to my monstera, Susie, and Betty the pothos’ lives. Then I thought, what if I just make a self-watering system for my room? Have a big tank of water and a small computer that controls pumps. So I went to ChatGPT, and with AI, I was able to turn my basic plan into a reality. The parts are on the way. 😉

In my Digital Entrepreneurship class, we are reading The Innovator’s DNA by Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen. The authors describe five skills that innovative people practice: questioning, observing, networking, experimenting, and associating. AI can make these skills easier to act on. I did the innovating by associating my coding experience and the power of a Raspberry Pi with my plant hobby to solve the problem of winter break. But without AI, it would’ve taken me a lot longer to figure out what pumps would work with what solenoids. I also probably would’ve spent more money buying things that wouldn’t have worked together.

Another example of AI giving you the means to water your ideas is my friend in that same class. He has been “vibe coding” using AI and created a website that tracks how often a website appears in different AI engines and how it can be cited more. He now has a company paying him a monthly subscription to help them with this!

Research backs this idea up, too. A 2025 study in the Journal of Innovation & Knowledge looked at how generative AI can help entrepreneurs in the process of developing a new business. The researchers found that the technology can help by “reducing information asymmetry and minimizing the time and costs associated with entrepreneurial exploration” (Li et al.). So, if you have an idea or something you want to try, now is the time, even if the AI bubble looming over our heads totally isn’t scary at all.

However, there are two sides to this coin. While AI can water your ideas, that water comes at a very literal cost. Miguel Yañez-Barnuevo reports that “each 100-word AI prompt is estimated to use roughly one bottle of water (519 milliliters)” (Yañez-Barnuevo). And while AI can make thinking easier and make it seem like you have all the information at your fingertips, that convenience can come with another cost. A 2025 study of 666 participants found a significant negative relationship between frequent AI use and critical thinking ability. This was largely due to “cognitive offloading,” or relying on AI to think for us (Gerlich). Even more concerning was that younger participants showed higher AI dependence and lower critical thinking scores. This creates an interesting feedback loop. AI can help us with all the tools of Innovating outlined by The Innovator’s DNA of questioning, observing, networking, experimenting, and associating more easily. But it seems that if we let it think for us it will lessen our ability to do those things.

I think AI is one of the most powerful tools ever created in human history. But that doesn’t mean that every use of it is progress, and that pushing the progression of AI at any cost is not ethical. Just like when we created fire, we should be conscious not to light the whole house and make a fire ring! Safety guards are important and necessary for the well-being of humanity in every industry. We need to use it as a tool to water our ideas, but not a replacement for sunlight.

Works Cited

Dyer, Jeff, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen. The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Harvard Business Review Press, 2011.

Gerlich, Michael. “AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking.” Societies, vol. 15, no. 1, 2025, article 6. MDPI, 6 Jan. 2025. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15010006.

Li, Yaojie, et al. “Elevating Entrepreneurship with Generative Artificial Intelligence.” Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, vol. 10, no. 6, 2025, article 100820. Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jik.2025.100820.

Yañez-Barnuevo, Miguel. “Data Centers and Water Consumption.” Environmental and Energy Study Institute, 25 June 2025. https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption.