The Carbon Footprint of ChatGPT. This article attempts to estimate the…

There's a lot of talk about ChatGPT these days, and some people talk about the monetary costs of running the model, but not many people talk about the environmental costs of the model. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities are a major driver of climate change [8]. The information and communications technology (ICT) sector and the data center industry are responsible for a relatively large share of global greenhouse gas emissions [9]. We -- users and developers of digital tools that run in data centers -- therefore need to do our part to contribute towards reducing the carbon footprint of digital activities, thereby mitigating climate change. To this end, it is first and foremost important that we become aware that even digital products require energy to develop and consume, thus they have a carbon footprint.