As Los Angeles battles devastating wildfires, social media users are drawing unexpected connections between the disaster and artificial intelligence.
Here’s the lowdown on why some TikTokers reckon ditching ChatGPT could help save the planet.
What’s happening with the LA fires?
Massive wildfires have been tearing through Los Angeles since Tuesday, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. At least 11 people have lost their lives, thousands of buildings have been reduced to ashes, and nearly 180,000 residents have had to flee their homes, as reported by the ABC.
The largest blaze in the Pacific Palisades remains largely uncontained, with firefighters struggling to get the upper hand. Currently there are six fires tearing through the region.
How is AI related to the LA fires?
While AI isn’t directly responsible for starting the fires, some social media users are pointing out its hefty environmental footprint, particularly its water usage. This connection is being made as firefighters struggle with water shortages in some areas.
It’s important to note, however, that the water shortages in Pacific Palisades are actually due to high demand, as the city water tanks around Los Angeles are designed to be able to put out localised fires, not widespread fires like the ones blazing through the region.
How does AI affect climate change?
It turns out those clever chatbots guzzle a shocking amount of water and electricity. According to a study by The Washington Post and researchers at the University of California, ChatGPT requires about 18 ounces (510 ml) of water to generate a single 100-word email using GPT-4. That’s a little more than a bottle of water used every time you get help writing an email.
TikTok creator Hyram (yes, the skincare guru) explained: “Basically, the servers that they utilise rapidly produce heat and in order to cool the systems down, similar to how our body produces sweat when we overheat, water is utilised to cool the systems down to the tune of 500 millilitres per ChatGPT response.”
The electricity usage is equally eye-watering. The same study found that generating one 100-word email uses 0.14 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, equivalent to powering 14 LED light bulbs for one hour.
Artist and activist Matt Bernstein highlighted these issues in a viral Instagram post (now deleted), stating: “One search on ChatGPT uses 10x the amount of energy as a Google search. Training one AI model produces the same amount of carbon dioxide as 300 round trip flights between New York and San Francisco and five times the lifetime emissions of a car.”
Should we be boycotting AI?
With LA burning and water in short supply, some TikTok users reckon it’s time to ditch AI — or at least until it becomes more sustainable.
Hyram is leading the charge, urging his followers to “delete ChatGPT, delete ChatGPT, just delete it”.
“I know it’s convenient, guys, but it’s literally one of the easiest things that we can do to not make the climate crisis and the global water crisis worse,” he said in his video.
TikToker Nik Polina took a more measured approach: “This fact kind of made me realise I need to be more mindful as to what I am asking AI, right? Because I don’t need to be asking at my grocery list.”
A recent report from the International Energy Agency dropped a bombshell: by 2026, all those data centres, AI systems, and crypto farms could be gobbling up twice as much electricity as they did in 2022. We’re talking power consumption on par with the entire country of Japan. Let that sink in for a moment.
So while AI is not solely responsible for the fires ravaging LA, it’s clear that our tech habits are adding fuel to the climate crisis fire. Maybe it’s time we took a hard look at our reliance on these energy-hungry digital assistants.
As Matt Bernstein put it in their viral post: “We don’t need AI ‘art’, we don’t need AI grocery lists. We don’t need AI self-driving cars. We don’t need ChatGPT or Gemini or Grok or dall-E or whatever ‘revolutionary’ technology already exists inside our own human brains. We need the earth.”
So next time you’re tempted to ask ChatGPT to write that email for you, maybe think twice. Your fingers and brain are probably up to the task — and you’ll be doing the planet a solid in the process.
Lead image: TikTok
The post TikTokers Are Urging People To Stop Using AI Following The LA Fires, Here’s Why appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
