8 hours ago
The water consumed to produce a single hamburger is over 2000 liters, and the power likely well over 100 watt-hours.
That means gpt can write >1000 emails using the resources of feeding a single person lunch. The resource efficiency of these machines already is really quite astonishing.
8 hours ago
This is an interesting point to get into but the article is light on detail.
The water claim is from an academic paper, I found slightly more detail in another article: “In a paper due to be published later this year, Ren’s team estimates ChatGPT gulps up 500 milliliters of water (close to what’s in a 16-ounce water bottle) every time you ask it a series of between 5 to 50 prompts or questions. The range varies depending on where its servers are located and the season. The estimate includes indirect water usage that the companies don’t measure — such as to cool power plants that supply the data centers with electricity.”
These estimates are partly based on this data: “In its latest environmental report, Microsoft disclosed that its global water consumption spiked 34% from 2021 to 2022 (to nearly 1.7 billion gallons, or more than 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools), a sharp increase compared to previous years that outside researchers tie to its AI research.”
8 hours ago
> enough power to light up 14 LED bulbs for one hour
What kind of bulbs are those? 5 W? 10 W? 0.5 W? This comparison is pretty useless and therefore raises the suspicion that it was chosen so it can be easily exaggerated. I mean, it's Ok to have something to compare it to, but they should also include the actual Wh figure.
8 hours ago
This is hypocrisy. For example consider "asking to write a simple email" - how many calories you burn if you do it by hand. You need to also consider the energy use of the activity that is replaced.
8 hours ago
It's worth considering that the convenience will mean this will be done more often, so a straight comparison won't be correct. Just consider how many emails we send compared to letters sent at the peak of their use.
8 hours ago
How many calories do you burn if you write it by hand? And how does that translate to environmental impact? Also you still have to “hand edit” ChatGPT generated stuff, so what you’re saying is the environmental impact is even greater than the article suggests (have to account for those extra calories)
8 hours ago
This is a good take. For some queries you'd spend hours browsing and reading yourself, which in turn would cost probably much more power if you consider my desktop setup with a tower and big monitor as well as my own time and energy.
7 hours ago
> You need to also consider the energy use of the activity that is replaced.
Jevons Paradox directly contradicts this, replacing an activity with more efficient means doesn't correlate to a decrease in resource consumption.
7 hours ago