[ChatGPT Open AI. Photo Credit to Unsplash]

Recently, Times of India reported that more than 500ml of water is used each time a question is asked to ChatGPT.

ChatGPT, an advanced interactive artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI, was released at the end of November 2022.

It is also referred to as a generative artificial intelligence because it can independently generate answers tailored to the user’s needs.

Unlike traditional artificial intelligence systems, ChatGPT can understand the context contained in a conversation and remember previous interactions with the user.

In addition to answering questions, it is capable of various tasks with completeness, such as coding, translation, composing, and writing papers.

Due to its versatile capabilities, it is used all over the world, and in fact, the number of users reached 1 million in just 5 days after its first launch.

By January 2023, the number of users had surpassed 100 million.

According to Statista, this record is about 150 times faster than Twitter (X), about 60 times faster than Facebook, and about 15 times faster than Instagram, which hit the record as the second fastest in the world to reach 100 million users in a short period of time.

Although the exact amount and method of water usage by ChatGPT's coolant are not officially disclosed, research done by Professor Xiaolei Ren, a computer engineering major at the University of Riverside in California, USA, suggests that when people ask ChatGPT a single question, 500ml water is used.

It is said that when this artificial intelligence runs, it takes about 500ml of water as coolant to cool down the engine and not to over heat the system.

However, it was argued that only a portion of the coolant can be reused because a significant amount evaporates during the cooling process.

Furthermore, in order for the artificial intelligence itself to learn, in addition to the coolant needed when the user asks a question, it must learn a lot of photos, documents, and videos, and this process also consumes a lot of energy.

Researchers criticized that freshwater shortages, severe droughts, and water resource depletion are worsening, but water consumption has increased significantly due to the advent of AI.

It is reported that the training GPT-3 version alone is said to have used 185,000 gallons, also known as 700,000 liters of water.

Moreover, it is expected that GPT versions 3.5 and 4 will use even more water.

According to West Des Moines Water Works, just a month ago, just before completing GPT Version 4 training at Open AI, it had pumped 11.5 million gallons of water, or about 6% of all water used on Earth.

Additionally, as OpenAI developed artificial intelligence services, Microsoft and Google's coolant usage increased rapidly.

Meanwhile, Professor Ren predicted that by 2027, the use of ChatGPT would amount to about 4.1-6.6 billion m2 per year.

This amount is equivalent to six times the annual water consumption of Denmark and half of the annual water consumption of the UK.

However, this analysis has not yet been officially published in an academic journal.