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Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

andymasley.substack.com · 9,088 words · saved by 9 readers

I have a cheat sheet for this post summarizing the main points here. If you don’t have time to read this post, these five graphs give most of the argument. Each includes both the energy/water cost of using ChatGPT in the moment and the amortized cost of training GPT-4: Intro Why write this? How should we think about the ethics of emissions? Are LLMs useful? Main Argument Emissions The incredibly small scales involved in individual LLM use How many people are actually using ChatGPT (I address training in this section) Other online activities’ emissions ChatGPT and similar apps are not the reason AI’s total energy use is rising so much Water use Why do LLMs use water? Where does it go after? How much water do LLMs use? This post is about why it’s not bad for the environment if you or any number of people use ChatGPT, Claude, or other large language models (LLMs). You can use ChatGPT as much as you like without worrying that you’re doing any harm to the planet. Worrying about your persona

I have a cheat sheet for this post summarizing the main points here. I’d actually recommend starting with that one! I have a post here on responses to critiques of these posts. Since publishing this post, newer estimates have come out that seem to show ChatGPT uses about 1/10th of the energy I assumed in this post. I can write an update later, but for now assume that it’s 10x as efficient as what I’ve written here. Intro Why write this? How should we think about the ethics of emissions? Are LLMs useful? Main Argument Emissions The incredibly small scales involved in individual LLM…

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