"Like watching 9 seconds of TV" - my arse: Google glosses over AI resource utilisation
AI queries don't cost much, Google claims in a new, self-published study. However, experts accuse the company of calculating with unrealistic figures.
Conversations with AI chatbots feel trivial. But behind them are huge data centres that require a lot of energy to operate, among other things. Suppliers of AI models are repeatedly confronted with accusations that their AI chatbots consume too many resources. The popular response to this is that AI models are becoming increasingly efficient and require less energy. However, global use is increasing rapidly.
Lack of context and no scientific judgement
That doesn't sound like much. But with more than 500 million visitors to the Gemini website per month - which means many times more individual requests to the bot - the small values add up enormously.
Modelling rather than calculating
The two criticise the fact that Google uses median values when calculating energy and water consumption, while other relevant research is based on average values. Median values gloss over the values as no outliers are taken into account, while average values include the total consumption. Google also does not provide details on which prompts the median figures are based on.
In addition, according to Ren, Google does not include indirect water consumption: Only the water needed to cool the servers is taken into account, he said. However, the largest water consumption is in electricity generation, for example for cooling nuclear power plants. Ren himself calculates 50 millilitres of water consumption per request to a chatbot - Google's figure is many times lower at 0.26 millilitres.
According to the two experts, Google also uses unrealistic data when it comes to carbon emissions. Google's study refers to general market emissions data, which also takes into account commitments to promote renewable energies. However, site-based data, i.e. figures that reflect the actual energy mix used by the data centres, are more realistic.
Google's new study should therefore be seen as a pseudo-scientific marketing stunt rather than a serious attempt to address the problems it has caused.
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.
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