What To Know About Google's AI Climate Footprint

For the climate concerned, the rise of the AI-reliant internet query is a cause for alarm. Many people have turned to ChatGPT and other services for simple questions. And even basic Google searches include an AI-derived result. Depending on how you crunch the numbers, it's possible to come up with a wide range for the energy usage and related climate cost of an AI query. ChatGPT provides the estimate of up to 0.34 watt-hours per prompt, equivalent to using a household lightbulb for 20 seconds, while one set of researchers concluded that some models may use as much as 100 times more for longer prompts.