What Does Generating an Image in A.I. Cost Us?

One minute with a hair dryer

When I got my first EV¹ I was curious as to the impact on my electric bill. Xcel at the time provided a graph of use hour by hour. I was struggling to find any high spots due to charging. But I did find it jumped like crazy one weekend. Over double some hours.

The culprit? One of our daughters was home for the weekend from college. Bottom line, charging an EV has much less impact on the electric bill than having a teenage daughter.

I recently had someone tell me how dare I generate an image for fun using A.I. because of the impact that has on the environment. So I dove in to calculating what that impact is.

The water impact is the amount of water to grow 1/100th of a pecan. So 100 images or 1 pecan. And datacenters borrow water (for cooling). It is all returned as steam that then falls downwind of the center.

I love pecan pie but I would give up the occasional slice for my use of A.I.

The power impact is the equivalent of using a hair dryer or space heater for 30 - 60 seconds. I don’t use a hair dryer myself but happy to give up my daughters² using it occasionally.

I bring these examples up not because I think we should force these trade-offs but because I want to show how small the hit is for individual uses of A.I. Yes when I create an image to try and get 20 - 200 people to smile, it’s an inconsequential thing. But so is a slice of pecan pie or blow drying your hair.

We should not devastate the environment to enjoy the pleasures of life. But we should feel very comfortable using small amounts of power & water to enjoy those things we like. That’s the goal of civilization — to provide us all with Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness.

Declaration of Independence

Yes when everyone uses A.I. that adds up to a lot of electrical generation and a fair amount of water. The same holds for the environmental impact of anything in wide use. The impact of drilling, refining, & delivering gasoline is gigantic. The impact behind building a house is even larger.

The impact of individual use of A.I. for personal ends is well within the impact of myriad other things we all do. It’s a very reasonable use of resources. Opposing using A.I. for environmental reasons is a bullshit argument.

1. Electric Vehicle

2. But not my wife’s use - I want to live.