OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed considerations about AI’s environmental influence this week whereas speaking at an event hosted by The Indian Express.
For one factor, Altman — who was in India for a serious AI summit — mentioned considerations about AI’s water utilization are “completely pretend,” although he acknowledged it was an actual subject when “we used to do evaporative cooling in information facilities.”
“Now that we don’t try this, you see this stuff on the web the place, ‘Don’t use ChatGPT, it’s 17 gallons of water for every question’ or no matter,” Altman mentioned. “That is fully unfaithful, completely insane, no connection to actuality.”
He added that it’s “honest” to be involved about “the power consumption — not per question, however in complete, as a result of the world is now utilizing a lot AI.” In his view, this implies the world must “transfer in direction of nuclear or wind and photo voltaic in a short time.”
There’s no authorized requirement for tech corporations to reveal how a lot power and water they use, so scientists have been trying to study it independently. Knowledge facilities have additionally been related to rising electrical energy costs.
Citing a earlier dialog with Invoice Gates, the interviewer requested whether or not it’s correct to say a single ChatGPT question at the moment makes use of the equal of 1.5 iPhone battery costs, to which Altman replied, “There’s no approach it’s something near that a lot.”
Altman additionally complained that many discussions about ChatGPT’s power utilization are “unfair,” particularly once they deal with “how a lot power it takes to coach an AI mannequin, relative to how a lot it prices a human to do one inference question.”
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“However it additionally takes a variety of power to coach a human,” Altman mentioned. “It takes like 20 years of life and all the meals you eat throughout that point earlier than you get good. And never solely that, it took the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people who have ever lived and realized to not get eaten by predators and realized how to determine science and no matter, to provide you.”
So in his view, the honest comparability is, “If you happen to ask ChatGPT a query, how a lot power does it take as soon as its mannequin is educated to reply that query versus a human? And possibly, AI has already caught up on an power effectivity foundation, measured that approach.”
You may watch the total interview beneath. The dialog about water and power utilization begins at round 26:35.
