Sam Altman Says AI Sips Teaspoon of Water

Companies spend more money on artificial intelligence every year and add the technology to their products. OpenAI created ChatGPT and pushed other companies to build similar computer programs. People worry about the environment as AI systems use more water and electricity than expected. Sam Altman runs OpenAI and shared numbers about how much water his company uses. He wants people to understand the true costs of running AI systems.

Altman wrote about water use on his company blog and gave specific amounts for each ChatGPT question. Each question uses about 0.000085 gallons of water according to his calculations. That equals roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon for every person who asks ChatGPT something. The CEO also shared electricity numbers and said each question uses 0.34 watt hours of power. An oven uses that much electricity during one second of cooking.

Environmental groups think Altman's numbers seem lower than the real amounts AI systems actually consume. Critics say OpenAI did not explain how they calculated these water and electricity figures. Many experts believe AI companies use much more water per question than Altman claims. Future AI systems will need even more resources as they become more powerful and complex.