What The Tech: How A.I. is affecting our environment – WAKA 8

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WAKA Action 8 News
by Justin Walker

BY JAMEY TUCKER, Consumer Technology Reporter
AI may feel invisible. Just a few keystrokes and a quick reply from a chatbot. But behind the scenes, it’s powered by enormous data centers running 24/7.
Researchers say training a single large language model, like ChatGPT, can use as much electricity as 100 homes use in a year.
Sound made up? It’s not. And it’s not just electricity. Data centers generate heat, and keeping that equipment cool requires a lot of water.
“When it’s being trained, what’s happening is it’s a huge amount of data that’s going in to make it what it is that you interact with,” says Keyona Meeks, an AI Strategist.
After training, every interaction still requires energy.
Keyona Meeks compares it to tiny sparks, multiplied by millions of users. And most of that power? Still comes from fossil fuels.
“AI’s environmental impact, as we are positioned right now, will be…I don’t want to say cataclysmic, but it isn’t intellectually dishonest to say that word,” says Meeks.
A University of California study found that every time you ask a chatbot a question it can use a
half a liter of fresh water to cool the servers. One prompt uses as much energy as powering a
lightbulb for a few minutes.
Even ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman recommends avoid saying “Thank you” to save resources.
Environmentalists are urging AI developers to rely on more renewable energy.But as AI gets
smarter, its resource demands are only going up.