Sam Altman would like remind you that humans use a lot of energy, too

Speaking at an event hosted by The Indian Express, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed concerns regarding AI's environmental impact. He labeled claims about ChatGPT's water usage as "totally fake" and "insane," noting that modern data centers no longer rely on evaporative cooling. However, Altman acknowledged that the total energy consumption from the widespread use of AI is a legitimate concern, necessitating a swift global shift toward nuclear, wind, or solar power. He also argued that comparisons focusing on the energy cost of training an AI model versus a single human inference query are unfair. Altman proposed a more equitable comparison: the energy required for AI to answer a question post-training versus a human, suggesting AI has likely already achieved energy efficiency parity when measured this way, considering the massive energy investment required to train a human over decades.

(Source：TechCrunch)