ChatGPT might not be the amazing answer to your problems that you thought it was, as there are some serious downsides.
But behind every cheeky query or polite “thank you” lies a shockingly thirsty truth - your favorite AI might be chugging Earth's clean drinking water and burning through energy like there’s no tomorrow.
ChatGPT hit the scene in 2022 and quickly became a commonly used programme around the world.
You might be here to satisfy a craving for knowledge, but ChatGPT? It has a different kind of craving.
Reports suggest that for every 10 to 50 queries you fire off, about 50cl of water is used - yes, actual drinking water, per the Guardian.
That's half a liter gone every time you ask it to write a poem or crack a dad joke.
It doesn’t stop there. Forbes reports that ChatGPT slurps up over half a million kilowatts of electricity each day - enough to power around 180,000 U.S. homes.
That’s a massive energy bill just so we can outsource our brainpower to a chatbot.
You may think saying “please” and “thank you” to AI is just harmless manners - or a clever ploy to score points when the robots take over.
But OpenAI’s founder jokingly warned on X that it “could cost tens of millions of dollars.” Yes, politeness now has a price tag.
Tech analyst Dylan Patel estimated that ChatGPT costs over £500k a day to run.
To keep the tech from going full meltdown, AI data centers need water - lots of it - to stay cool. These centers rely on complex cooling systems, which basically act like giant mechanical sweat glands.
According to David Craig, chief executive of Iceotope, a UK-based data center cooling company, the data centres use water-based systems to cool the plant with towers evaporating the heat, like a huge perspiration system, which means that the water is lost.
And the kicker is that the water has to be drinking quality.
The water also has to be of drinking quality because any impurities could damage the servers.
With AI creeping into more corners of daily life, the environmental impact is only getting worse.
Electricity and drinkable water - resources that could be supporting people - are being funneled into keeping AI running smoothly.
As Forbes reports: “By 2050, two-thirds of the world's population is expected to suffer from water scarcity.”
I wanted to give ChatGPT a chance to defend itself, so after asking it what it makes of reports that AI is bad for the environment, this is what it had to say:
"Yes, AI has a significant environmental cost, particularly in energy and water usage. While the industry is working on solutions, the debate is ongoing about whether the benefits of AI, like accelerating climate research, will outweigh its environmental impact.
"It’s a nuanced issue that will only become more important as AI adoption grows."