The ’80s are trending. But AI nostalgia comes with a hidden environmental cost

Every AI-generated image requires computing power, electricity and cooling, raising questions about the environmental price of a seemingly harmless online fad.

Retro is always in fashion. So is its appeal globally. It is no surprise that a wave of retro nostalgia has taken over global social media feeds. Millions of social media users—from ordinary citizens to high-profile politicians, sports stars and celebrities—have replaced their contemporary photographs with faded 1980s-style portraits of themselves in clothes in vogue four decades ago. These images, however, are not retrieved from family photo albums of yore. They are generated in seconds by artificial intelligence.