Most people don’t really think about it when they type something into a chatbot. But typing is utilizing more than just the internet. There is real energy being consumed behind the scenes. That’s energy in the form of electricity and water.
Sam Altman, the co founder and CEO of Open AI, the company that developed ChatGPT, mentioned that a query consumes enough electricity to power a small lightbulb for 3 to 4 minutes and an upped it to 20 minutes. I didn’t think this was that big of a deal at first, until I thought about how many questions people were asking every 1 or 2 seconds of the day and then it started to look more serious in my eyes.
The water aspect is even stranger to me. That being said, it is only 1/15 teaspoon per each question. That is a small enough amount that is hard to visualize. But it still matters, because it shows these tools use water just to function. That yes, they take water and use it to cool the servers that are powering everything. Water is not even something we would see on our screens, but it would consistently be consumed in our every question.
Altman also talked about the future, what it will mean when energy costs are so low that it's as easy and low cost to use AI as it is to turn on a light. For those of us who increasingly rely on AI to get work done, study and just get through the days, that sounds really nice. Right now however, these systems use up limited resources.
Companies like Microsoft and Google are already preparing for the future. As they continue to build data centers, they are trying to utilize nuclear or solar powered energy. At face value, that may seem brave, ambitious and slightly reckless. But it shows how fast things are moving, the pressure is on to continue the development of AI without burning everything down.
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