‘Frightening’ ChatGPT boss says AI is easier than growing a human | Science | News

OpenAI chief Sam Altman has been branded ‘sickeningly evil’ and ‘anti-human’ after comments comparing AI’s energy consumption to the resources required to ‘grow’ a person.

The ChatGPT boss has been trying to counter accusations that each query consumes a staggering amount of water, calling the criticisms “completely fake” and arguing that people are overlooking the energy they themselves consume.

However, Altman faced fierce backlash online for drawing parallels between artificial intelligence and humans; One technology expert stated that “we do not want to see a world where we equate a piece of technology with a human being.”

“Don’t use ChatGPT, it requires 17 gallons of water for every query or something,” he said before dismissing it completely. “This is completely wrong, completely crazy, has no connection with reality.”

During an event hosted by The Indian Express as part of a major AI summit, Altman said: “Don’t use ChatGPT, it’s like 17 gallons of water for every query. It’s completely wrong, completely crazy, has no connection with reality.”

He explained that older data centers relied on evaporative cooling, a water-intensive system, but argued that is no longer the case for OpenAI. However, he acknowledged that there was still a serious concern.

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Altman said: “It’s not right to worry about energy consumption – not per query, but in total, because the world is using so much AI now. The world needs to move towards nuclear, wind and solar energy very quickly.”

Currently, tech companies have no legal obligation to publicly disclose exactly how much energy and water they consume; This is a controversial issue for scientists trying to track the real-world impact of the AI ​​revolution.

Critics warn that the concentration of large server farms could put pressure on local power networks and, in some cases, lead to higher electricity costs.

Altman disputed the suggestion that a single ChatGPT query could consume the equivalent of 1.5 iPhone battery charges, saying: “There’s no way that’s anything close to that.”

He argued that the entire debate is often presented in an unfair way, focusing on the energy required to train an AI model, then comparing this to the minimal cost of a human completing a task.

“It also takes a lot of energy to train a person,” Altman said. “It takes about 20 years of life and all the food you eat during that time to get wise.

“And not only that, but it took the massive evolution of the 100 billion people who have ever lived to produce you, learning how to avoid being eaten by predators and learning how to figure out science and so on. AI has already grown on the basis of energy efficiency.”

Scientist Sridhar Vembu shared his thoughts to

The remarks sparked fierce debate on Reddit, with one user raging: “This is literally one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen a tech company say. Like, whatever cost/benefit analysis it applies to implementing lines of code, it doesn’t seem to truly understand that human life has value.”

Another user was equally scathing: “They are anti-human. The most sickeningly evil thing imaginable.”