Sam Altman Would Like To Remind You That Humans Use a Lot of Energy, Too

Source: Slashdot

Overview

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is pushing back on growing concerns about AI’s environmental footprint, dismissing claims about ChatGPT’s water consumption as “totally fake” and arguing that a fairer way to measure AI’s energy use is to compare it against humans.

Altman’s Remarks on Water Usage

In an interview with Indian Express, Altman acknowledged that evaporative cooling in data centers once made water usage a real concern. He said that is no longer the case, calling internet claims of 17 gallons of water per query “completely untrue, totally insane, no connection to reality.”

Energy Consumption Perspective

• Altman conceded it is “fair” to worry about total consumption given how heavily the world now relies on AI.
• He called for a rapid shift toward nuclear, wind, and solar power.
• He took particular issue with comparisons that pit the cost of training a model against a single human inference, noting it “takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat” before a person gets smart — and that on a per‑query basis, AI has “probably already caught up on an energy efficiency basis.”