keep active ChatGPT, the popular OpenAI chatbot, is very expensive, and also resource-intensive. Among them, a large amount of power needed to keep the servers active. But too much wateraccording to A study from the University of Colorado Riverside and the University of Texas Arlington.
The study, which measures the energy impact of artificial intelligence models such as ChatGPT, GPT-3 and GPT-4, reveals that companies use a lot of fresh water to cool servers dedicated to the operation of the aforementioned AI products. Only Microsoft, in fact, has come to use up to 700,000 liters of water in its data centers in the United States. And alone to train GPT-3. It is a hassle that, as the researchers say, would triple “if the training had been carried out in Microsoft’s Asian data centers.”
As an example of the excessive amount of water that Microsoft has consumed to cool its servers dedicated to AI training, the researchers say that with these 700,000 liters, BMW could produce up to 370 cars, and Tesla up to 320..
ChatGPT consumes a bottle of water for each chat session
The water expense is also excessive when users use ChatGPT. Specifically, the chatbot consume the equivalent of a 500 ml bottle of water for each chat session of about 20 to 50 questions. A seemingly small amount, but considerable if we take into account that millions of people converse with the AI.
It is, of course, a serious problem considering the scarcity of clean water. The researchers also urge that the companies in charge of developing AI models “should assume their social responsibility and lead by example by addressing their own water footprint.” They do not specify, however, any effective solution for companies like OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, or Google, who recently announced Bard.
Keeping ChatGPT active is also excessively expensive
In addition to consuming a lot of power and water, ChatGPT is also excessively expensive for OpenAI. Tom Goldstein, a researcher and current professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, esteem that keeping the servers up to run the chatbot costs OpenAI between $100,000 a day and $3 million a month.
Precisely, and in order to continue maintaining the service, OpenAI announced a ‘Plus’ plan for ChatGPT. In this, and for 20 dollars a month, users have unlimited access to the chatbot. That is, even in those “peak hours” where there are more users. ChatGPT Plus subscribers can also try GPT-4 now, the company’s new language model that is considerably more advanced—and up-to-date—than GPT-3.