Chatting with Alexa, Siri, and Ok Google was all fun and games until the generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) ChatGPT entered our lives. We all went gaga over the new toy and made it our go-to platform for all the information in the world. But we don’t realise how this fancy toy is playing with us in reality. We’ve all been worried about AI taking our jobs, but it is already taking away something far more valuable – water.

But how is water usage related to AI?

Connecting the dots

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“Please stop using AI to see what you’d look like as a sexy Sims character… this s**t is cooking the planet,” says Ayo Edebiri, an American actor and comedian. She shared the Instagram posts of Commons and Waste Free Planet focussing on AI’s water consumption. The artificial in AI is real as it’s not an abstract setup in our computers or mobile phones. It functions with the help of natural resources like any other thing on Earth. AI runs on technology as its servers are planted in several data centres that require natural energy to work. These data centers not only generate excessive heat but they also use water-based cooling systems.

Calculating AI’s daily meals

According to the IEA, a single Google search consumes 0.3 watt-hours of electricity while the ChatGPT request gobbles up 2.9 watt-hours. Furthermore, we are pouring out a bottle of water each time we ask ChatGPT to generate a 100-word email. AI’s water usage has considerably increased from ChatGPT-3 to ChatGPT-4. Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Riverside, researched that ChatGPT-3 used to drink 500 ml of fresh water to generate 10-15 responses. Now, just one email prompt is consuming the same amount of water or 14 LED lightbulbs for one hour. How can we stop this wastage?

Stop the damage to save yourselves

It’s time to be very demure, very mindful of using AI, especially ChatGPT, to fight climate change. So, think of skipping ChatGPT like taking a shorter shower that gives an equal result. Each time you go for a 10-minute shower, you use 25 gallons of water which equals 156 AI prompts.

The sad truth is that we take pride in being technologically advanced when we are actually putting our lives at stake. The day isn’t far when a crippling reduction in natural resources will be unstoppable, leaving us with nothing. Literally. So the next time you want to ask ChatGPT a silly question, maybe just ask your friends and laugh about it.

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