If you’ve heard anything about the relationship between Big Tech and climate change, it’s probably that the data centers that power our online lives use a mind-boggling amount of power. And some of the newest energy hogs on the block are artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT. Some researchers suggest that ChatGPT alone might use as much power as 33,000 U.S. households in a typical day, a number that could balloon as the technology becomes more widespread.
The staggering emissions add to a general tenor of panic driven by headlines about AI stealing jobs, helping students cheat, or, who knows, taking over. Already, some 100 million people use OpenAI’s most famous chatbot on a weekly basis, and even those who don’t use it likely encounter AI-generated content often. But a recent study points to an unexpected upside of that wide reach: Tools…