Generative AI is inescapable. It feels as if it’s in almost every app, website, advertisement and workplace. Arguments have been brought up frequently against its usage, though they are often shot down by the collective assumption that AI can vastly improve a human life. But is the convenience AI provides us worth the single most important thing for our survival: our drinking water?
According to a news report by the BBC, generative AI is so energy-intensive that to cool the data centers that power it, water has to be used, and not just any water — specifically clean drinking water.
Unfiltered water isn’t enough for our little artificial assistants because it’ll corrode and damage their fragile infrastructure. Humans can’t go without water for more than 3 days, but come on, ChatGPT is thirsty!
1/15 of a teaspoon of water on average is used for a single interaction with ChatGPT, according to its CEO Sam Altman, and that doesn’t even account for the water used in the manufacturing of AI’s processing chips and the steam used to power the data centers.
Altman claims that one billion messages are sent to its system daily. With some simple math, that comes out to about 87,000 gallons of water every day. That’s insane — and that number is only for a single chatbot.
Humanity has thrived on the constant development of technology. Our survival and quality of life are often dependent on it. What generative AI is capable of can seem otherworldly. But is using it to write an email to your coworker because you were too tired to do it yourself really all that impressive?
I myself am guilty of using AI in the past; I think almost all of us are. AI’s convenience can be irresistible. It can be easy to do something when we are disconnected from the consequences of our actions. But just because we can’t yet see the effects of generative AI on the environment doesn’t mean they aren’t occurring.
If we continue to use AI on such a large scale, we will all eventually be affected. If we allow just one person’s water supply to be compromised, we open up the opportunity for it to happen to anyone.
When it gets to the point that AI drinks our **water, makes our **art, and performs our **jobs, what’s left for us?
Sure, we may have less work to do, but that only does so much good when we are left thirsty and penniless. I think we often forget that what makes humanity so great lies right within its name: being human.
When a technological innovation like generative AI chips away at what makes us who we are — our water and ability to help one another survive — I think it’s time to rethink using it.
