💧 Water-guzzling. ⚡ Power-hungry. 🤖 And maybe a little too clingy.
So, you’ve been casually chatting to ChatGPT — asking it to polish your CV, tell you a joke, or rewrite your dating profile. But behind every polite “please” and “thanks” lies a slightly terrifying environmental bill.
Turns out, firing up ChatGPT isn’t just bad for your productivity — it might also be bad for the planet.
Every Chat = One Big Waste of Water
According to recent reports, every 10–50 questions you ask the AI burns through around half a litre of clean drinking water. That’s right, a bottle of Evian just poof — gone. Why? Because the servers powering this thing get hot — like, melt-a-human levels of hot.
To keep those data centres cool, they use massive amounts of water in high-grade cooling systems. And no, it can’t be rainwater or toilet water. It needs to be the good stuff — purified, drinkable, life-sustaining Hâ‚‚O.
“These things are basically sweating out more water than your gym crush on leg day.”
– Not an actual quote, but probably true.
Addicted to Power
ChatGPT reportedly chomps through 500,000+ kilowatt hours a day — enough to power 180,000 US homes. That’s not just someone googling dinner ideas. That’s millions of us asking it to write emails, poems, and definitely-not-plagiarised essays.
Politeness Costs Money
Even saying “please” and “thank you” to the AI costs money. No joke. OpenAI’s CEO hinted that unnecessary niceties from users could run up tens of millions in extra costs. That’s right — being polite to your robot mate is now a luxury.
So, Should You Be Worried?
Honestly? A little. We’re heading for a future where 2/3 of the world may face water scarcity by 2050 — and we’re spending precious resources training chatbots to explain crypto memes.
Data centres are vital for modern tech, but the trade-off is becoming clearer. Electricity and drinking water meant for homes are getting funnelled into keeping AIs like ChatGPT online and cool.
TL;DR
- ChatGPT eats water and energy like it’s at an all-you-can-drink rave.
- Being polite to it might be eco-expensive.
- Maybe don’t use it for everything — call your nan once in a while.
🔌💧💻 Your digital BFF comes with a climate cost. Use it wisely.
