Sam Altman defends AI’s energy toll by saying it also takes a lot to ‘train a human’

OpenAI CEO also downplayed concerns about how much water datacenters require at AI summit in India OpenAI boss Sam Altman has tried to ease concerns about how much power is used by artificial intelligence models by comparing it to the amount of energy required by human development. “People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model – but it also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” Altman told The Indian Express recently while in India for the AI Impact summit. “It takes abo...

By Eric Berger

Sam Altman says concerns of ChatGPT's energy use are overblown: 'It also takes a lot of energy to train a human'

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said claims that ChatGPT consumes huge amounts of water are outdated and "fake." Altman said it's fair to say the AI industry consumes a lot of energy overall, but that's different than chatbot queries. Altman compared energy use from training to humans, saying "it takes a lot of energy to train a human" over "20 years of life." Sam Altman is pushing back on the idea that ChatGPT consumes too much energy. "One of the t...