Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment • Hacker News Board

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#281

Post by baobun » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 7:49 PM UTC

andymasley wrote: post #277

Retric wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marginal difference of someone sitting or not sitting on a specific flight isn’t 10 gallons of fuel. It’s the capacity of the entire aircraft making that trip / number of passengers that gives 10 gallons on average because if more people make a trip eventually you need an extra aircraft. So on an apples to apples comparison ChatGPT including training, hardware, etc uses a fuck of a lot more than just 3 Wh per que…

The training cost adds a minuscule amount to the marginal cost of each search. The best sources I can find on training GPT-4 say it used 50 GWh of energy to train. GPT-4 is being used for a lot more than ChatGPT, but even if we assume that ChatGPT is all it's used for if we divide the total cost of energy by the total number of ChatGPT searches it increases the cost of each search by 10% (I go into this in the post)…

Sorry but this doesn't add up and it's not fixable because the argument is broken and I doubt the numbers are even in the right order of magnitude when considered in context. (That's before considering that it also had the effect of you writing and sharing this post - what's the second-order-effecf of people seeing it increasing their use as result of that and resharing the same idea with their peers etc? What's the network effect of your digital clock?)

You are rationalizing your laziness in an attempt to cope with the negative effects that you truly deep down know are there.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#282

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 7:56 PM UTC

andymasley wrote: post #277

Retric wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marginal difference of someone sitting or not sitting on a specific flight isn’t 10 gallons of fuel. It’s the capacity of the entire aircraft making that trip / number of passengers that gives 10 gallons on average because if more people make a trip eventually you need an extra aircraft. So on an apples to apples comparison ChatGPT including training, hardware, etc uses a fuck of a lot more than just 3 Wh per que…

The training cost adds a minuscule amount to the marginal cost of each search. The best sources I can find on training GPT-4 say it used 50 GWh of energy to train. GPT-4 is being used for a lot more than ChatGPT, but even if we assume that ChatGPT is all it's used for if we divide the total cost of energy by the total number of ChatGPT searches it increases the cost of each search by 10% (I go into this in the post)…

[deleted]

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#283

Post by Retric » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC

andymasley wrote: post #277

Retric wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marginal difference of someone sitting or not sitting on a specific flight isn’t 10 gallons of fuel. It’s the capacity of the entire aircraft making that trip / number of passengers that gives 10 gallons on average because if more people make a trip eventually you need an extra aircraft. So on an apples to apples comparison ChatGPT including training, hardware, etc uses a fuck of a lot more than just 3 Wh per que…

The training cost adds a minuscule amount to the marginal cost of each search. The best sources I can find on training GPT-4 say it used 50 GWh of energy to train. GPT-4 is being used for a lot more than ChatGPT, but even if we assume that ChatGPT is all it's used for if we divide the total cost of energy by the total number of ChatGPT searches it increases the cost of each search by 10% (I go into this in the post)…

Not so fast, billions of investment wasn’t spent on just 50 GWh of electricity.

The final step of training one specific model might have used 50 GWh which only costs what 0.011 billion? What the fuck do you think they are spending the rest of that money on?

And what do you think environmental impact of that spending was?

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#284

Post by oneplane » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 8:07 PM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #259

oneplane wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that when you have a high local usage your grid loses the ability to respond to peaks since that capacity is now always in use. Essentially it raises the baseline use which means your elasticity is pretty much gone. A grid isn't a magic battery that is always there, it is constantly fluctuating, regardless of the intent of producers and consumers. You need to be able to have enough elasticity to deal wit…

Except neither ChatGPT and nor sources say this. First source says: > Gas-fired generation could meet data centers’ immediate power needs and transition to backup generation over time, panelists told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. What you are saying has nothing to do with local, but has to do with large abrupt changes in electricity usage, and datacenter electricity usage is generally more predictible…

I'm not talking about fluctuations (i.e. a datacenter with fluctuating usage). I'm taking about adding a datacenter to an existing grid. That significantly changes the baseline load on the grid, and that is a local problem because transmission is not universally even across an entire grid.

If your transmission line is saturated, it doesn't matter how much more generation you add on the source end, it's not gonna deliver 'more' over the transmission lines.

And that is just a simplistic local example, because it's not a single producer, single consumer, single transmission line scenario. ChatGPT and the article aren't diving in to that. The closest they might get is congestion but even then you already have to know the issue to be able to ask about it.

As far as the article itself is involved here, this tread mostly goes into the reason why global usage percentages doesn't mean there are no problems. It's like saying gerrymandering has no impact because of some percentages elsewhere.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#285

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 8:07 PM UTC

andymasley wrote: post #277

Retric wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marginal difference of someone sitting or not sitting on a specific flight isn’t 10 gallons of fuel. It’s the capacity of the entire aircraft making that trip / number of passengers that gives 10 gallons on average because if more people make a trip eventually you need an extra aircraft. So on an apples to apples comparison ChatGPT including training, hardware, etc uses a fuck of a lot more than just 3 Wh per que…

The training cost adds a minuscule amount to the marginal cost of each search. The best sources I can find on training GPT-4 say it used 50 GWh of energy to train. GPT-4 is being used for a lot more than ChatGPT, but even if we assume that ChatGPT is all it's used for if we divide the total cost of energy by the total number of ChatGPT searches it increases the cost of each search by 10% (I go into this in the post)…

[deleted]

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#286

Post by andymasley » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 8:08 PM UTC

baobun wrote: post #281

andymasley wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The training cost adds a minuscule amount to the marginal cost of each search. The best sources I can find on training GPT-4 say it used 50 GWh of energy to train. GPT-4 is being used for a lot more than ChatGPT, but even if we assume that ChatGPT is all it's used for if we divide the total cost of energy by the total number of ChatGPT searches it increases the cost of each search by 10% (I go into this in the post)…

Sorry but this doesn't add up and it's not fixable because the argument is broken and I doubt the numbers are even in the right order of magnitude when considered in context. (That's before considering that it also had the effect of you writing and sharing this post - what's the second-order-effecf of people seeing it increasing their use as result of that and resharing the same idea with their peers etc? What's the…

If I'm going to be accused of rationalizing my laziness I need at least one source saying my numbers are off. I'm going off the numbers provided by environmentalist critics of ChatGPT. I hope that by sharing my post people feel exactly as guilty about using ChatGPT as they do about buying one additional digital clock.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#287

Post by andymasley » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 8:09 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #283

andymasley wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The training cost adds a minuscule amount to the marginal cost of each search. The best sources I can find on training GPT-4 say it used 50 GWh of energy to train. GPT-4 is being used for a lot more than ChatGPT, but even if we assume that ChatGPT is all it's used for if we divide the total cost of energy by the total number of ChatGPT searches it increases the cost of each search by 10% (I go into this in the post)…

Not so fast, billions of investment wasn’t spent on just 50 GWh of electricity. The final step of training one specific model might have used 50 GWh which only costs what 0.011 billion? What the fuck do you think they are spending the rest of that money on? And what do you think environmental impact of that spending was?

Most of that money went into infrastructure + human talent, with energy costs at the tail end. I'd be happy to include the energy costs of producing the materials, feeding the humans and moving them around etc. but those aren't usually included in environmentalist critiques of the energy used in training. I couldn't use the original article to unpack every possible interpretation of how much energy was used without it turning into a book. If we did the same for plane rides we'd also need to include the energy cost of assembling the planes, training and feeding the human pilots etc.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#288

Post by baobun » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 8:10 PM UTC

kolinko wrote: post #208

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you belive this? Datacenter uses just a 1-1.3 percent of electricity from grid and even if you suppose AI increased the usage by 2x(which I really doubt), the number would still be tiny. Also AI training is easiest workload to regulate, as you can only train when you have cheaper green energy.

I also had doubts, but asked chat and it confirms it’s an issue - including sources. https://chatgpt.com/share/678b6b3e-9708-8009-bcad-8ba84a5145... The issue is that they are often localised, so even if it’s just 1% of power, it can cause issues. Still, by itself, grid issues don’t mean climate issues. And any argument complaining about a co2 cost should also consider alternative cost to be reliable. Even if ai was…

ChatGPT didn't "confirm" anything there. It is not a meaninful reference.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#289

Post by jraph » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 8:17 PM UTC

andymasley wrote: post #287

Retric wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so fast, billions of investment wasn’t spent on just 50 GWh of electricity. The final step of training one specific model might have used 50 GWh which only costs what 0.011 billion? What the fuck do you think they are spending the rest of that money on? And what do you think environmental impact of that spending was?

Most of that money went into infrastructure + human talent, with energy costs at the tail end. I'd be happy to include the energy costs of producing the materials, feeding the humans and moving them around etc. but those aren't usually included in environmentalist critiques of the energy used in training. I couldn't use the original article to unpack every possible interpretation of how much energy was used without i…

> feeding the humans

You shouldn't include this, because they would exist and eat anyway, and probably the same thing (unless, maybe, their habits are changed).

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#290

Post by Retric » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 8:26 PM UTC

andymasley wrote: post #287

Retric wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so fast, billions of investment wasn’t spent on just 50 GWh of electricity. The final step of training one specific model might have used 50 GWh which only costs what 0.011 billion? What the fuck do you think they are spending the rest of that money on? And what do you think environmental impact of that spending was?

Most of that money went into infrastructure + human talent, with energy costs at the tail end. I'd be happy to include the energy costs of producing the materials, feeding the humans and moving them around etc. but those aren't usually included in environmentalist critiques of the energy used in training. I couldn't use the original article to unpack every possible interpretation of how much energy was used without i…

Fair enough, I’m not saying you have to do the analysis.

I was working from a rough order of magnitude estimate from their spending and calling their numbers BS.

Airlines are a better studied industry so you can find academic literature or use direct fuel costs which is a large enough cost you can get fairly close just using it alone.