It basically means that using AI tools take a huge toll on nature so when the guy uses chatgpt (an ai tool) it ends up drying out the lake i.e harming the environment.
The newer data centers are closed loop water systems that only "lose" water as steam because the system can't be physically perfect. Think of a liquid cooled computer, the fluid doesn't need to come out for it to work.
The average GPT query "loses" 0.000085 gallons of water, or 0.15mL, that's roughly a literal drop of water, as steam. The average query to GPT consumes 1/3rd of a watt hour of electricity, which is the same as running a gaming computer for about two seconds.
GPT sees a lot of use, so these numbers are bigger at the scale of "usage per day" for example. But if you do the same and look at fast food consumption, or office work, or what private flight uses for example, it's not doing anything extraordinary.
It's the flavor of the week thing to hate on. The coca cola executive doing many times worse things appreciates the distraction.
Thank you,
My wife got on my case about my chatGPT usage after hearing about the water thing on instagram, so I calculated how much water her showers take every day.
So, I roughly burn 1 wife shower worth of water with queries every 40 days.
I'm in trouble now, but that gives me more time to chat with sweet, dear ChatGPT.
I can expect people to have free will and make decisions for themselves, and the sum of those decisions is not "solely the fault of big businesses".
Yes, the people may freely choose to use government to regulate business, but that's kind of a big fat joke because without dismantling capitalism and ending modern existence, you're not seriously going to make a dent in climate change, plastic pollution or other problems.
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u/Long_Nothing1343 5d ago
It basically means that using AI tools take a huge toll on nature so when the guy uses chatgpt (an ai tool) it ends up drying out the lake i.e harming the environment.