Does anyone avoid using ChatGPT because of its water usage?

[u/Sad_Butterscotch7063]

Hey, I recently came across something about how using ChatGPT, Blackbox AI and similar AI tools actually consumes a surprising amount of water (cooling data centers, I guess). Made me wonder, have people here stopped or reduced using it because of that?

Curious how others are thinking about it in terms of sustainability and personal impact.

[u/thedrexel]

I’ve got zero use for it. I downvote and block users that post shit from any ai. I really fucking hate it when someone answers a question in a sub with “I asked chat blah blah and it said blah blah”. I hate the “art” too.

[u/chemicalysmic → u/thedrexel]

I HATE this so much lol- I delete comments from my social media posts (science communicator) where laypeople are answering questions from other laypeople with "I don't know but I asked ChatGPT..." If you don't know, sit down. Dunning-Kruger complexes on crack.

[u/Accomplished-Till930 → u/chemicalysmic]

Over on truth social and on my “local” subreddit the Republicans have been doing this a lot recently, I refuse to engage with “chatgop” as I have started calling it.

[u/thedrexel → u/chemicalysmic]

Agreed! Fuck all that shit!

[u/omg-sheeeeep → u/chemicalysmic]

Which is also funny, because the AI chatbot doesn't know either!

Research suggests that AI is often wrong, people have been taking it at face value even though it's fake to their own detriment.

[u/imlegos → u/omg-sheeeeep]

AI is good at convincing itself it's correct.

[u/RegularTeacher2 → u/thedrexel]

I work with a project manager who uses chatgpt for EVERYTHING: drafting emails, writing reports, putting together presentations, QA/QC'ing design plans, you name it. It has caused so much extra work for me and my coworkers because he never proofreads what it generates. It fucking boils my blood.

[u/throwaway098764567 → u/RegularTeacher2]

the chaos in me wants to suggest you just stop proofreading it for him and let things go where they go. but knowing what i know of work, it probably won't be him that pays for his mistakes

[u/RegularTeacher2 → u/throwaway098764567]

My coworkers and I have thought about that, but ultimately we want to produce the best work we can so we just fix his mistakes and grumble about it. Fortunately there's been enough of us who have had issues with this that he was finally informed yesterday his AI usage needs to be cut back, so we will see how it goes.

[u/corgi-potato → u/thedrexel]

I HATE AI art 😒

[u/rowenaaaaa1 → u/corgi-potato]

AI images. It's not art.

[u/ScaredAdvertising125 → u/thedrexel]

Oh god I’m so glad that I’m not alone

They use this shitty AI generated music in our town halls and I fucking hate it. It’s just annoying beats, rambling bullshit lyrics and it makes a mockery of the human creation of music.

[u/Iandidar → u/thedrexel]

It's a useful tool, but you have to really watch the output. I basically use it as spell check on steroids. Spelling, grammar, consistency in tense and tone. That kind of thing.

Then of course reread it to make sure it didn't break anything.

[u/Puzzled_Molasses_259 → u/Iandidar]

I tend to be blunt in my speech/emails. It’s caused problems for me over the years because people think I’m being mean or rude. I recently discovered that ChatGPT can evaluate the tone of your text. It saved me from sending an email that probably would have caused drama unintentionally the other day.

[u/yak_danielz → u/thedrexel]

i downloaded it a couple years ago just to make it answer the dumbest, non-answerable questions i could think of in the middle of the day when i'm bored and wanna hearty laugh.

when i was being silly, it was fine. but when i asked serious questions, it would fail half the time.

after listening to conversations with people who design and work on these AI systems, if they are worried, why shouldn't i be?

[u/hatesnack → u/thedrexel]

I actually had a great use for AI recently. I work helping professors submit grant requests to the government, and this one RFP absolutely required a Gantt chart. The professor is an older neurologist and has no clue what a Gantt chart is.

I was able to upload his milestones plan and have GPT spit out a half decent Gantt chart in a few minutes. I'd have just made it myself, but the thing had to be submitted in a few hours and other things weren't finished.

I think using AI as a tool is great, it's people that try and replace too much with it that are the problem.

[u/Dr_Matoi → u/[deleted]]

So when it is integrated into daily life, into every phone, every computer, every tablet, in your hospitals and your workplace, what's going to be your excuse for not learning it?

There is nothing to learn.

Prompting is a skill

No, it is not. LLMs do not understand what the user writes, and they do not think like a human nor process their input like a human. Their behaviour can be influenced by string changes that make no intuitive sense to a human user, like starting the prompt with seemingly random word salad. There is no reliable, systematic way of finding an optimal prompt besides brute force combinatorics over thousands or millions of permutations. A user who has dabbled around to find a prompt form that works reasonably well has not "learned a skill". They just anthropomorphize the machine and think, "makes sense that this prompt improves performance". But there are probably countless prompt variations that would be even better, yet the user will never think of trying them. And those differ from task to task and model to model, so even if one works out the best using automation, it is not transferrable - it has to be started over each time for each model. People who think they are "skilled AI-users" are deluding themselves.

[u/hanhepi → u/[deleted]]

If I want to write a literary masterpiece, I'll take a crack at actually writing it, not feeding some bullsit into AI and hoping it spits out something great. That's not "writing". That's letting a computer do the writing for you.

I'm enough of a Luddite I'll probably do the first draft on paper with a pen.

And if I fail at writing a great literary work? Oh well, lots of other folks have already managed it, I'll just read their stuff instead.

If I want to compose a work equal to Mozart I'll... well I'll give up immediately because I've never had much of an ear for music (I listen to Nickelback sometimes for Pete's sake), and I never learned to read music nor play an instrument (Hot Cross Buns/3 Blind Mice on the recorder doesn't count).

AI isn't going to replace me in the workplace any time soon. I'm a housewife, and my husband is way too poor to ever buy a robot to replace me. lol. I've got job security. And he won't be replaced at his work by AI anytime soon either, because he's a skilled mechanic. He doesn't have to worry until AI gets thumbs.

Until then, I'll keep right on not using AI, and my life will go on largely unchanged.

[u/thedrexel → u/[deleted]]

I already have it on my phone. It is turned off. I have the option on my home computer, it is turned off. My job, it is not used and if it is used I will be the one that finds the errors in it, there are only 2 people where I work that does what I do, myself and one other.

The problem with ai is what you said, “it doesn’t know anything that people don’t know”. Exactly. The majority of people are fucking stupid. I don’t need an incompetent machine learning program making my life more difficult than it already

I see you’ve added to your post since I posted the above. I’m also a musician. I don’t need ai to help me write music. Those that do weren’t disciplined enough to practice. My personal creative endeavors are just that, mine. I also use modular synthesizers. There is a patch that I like to occasionally build that will produce an almost endless sequence of notes. The “random” generation of notes is made by using a “source of uncertainty” module that spits out “random” control voltages. I put random in quotes because the randomization can be varied depending on how you modulate it via another output module or where you send the signal after it is generated. At the basic level this is a basic program to get interesting random sounds. It takes a good understanding of your personal modular system (most people have different systems set up based on personal preferences with different modules that do the same thing but by different manufacturers). I saw all of that because I could do this with ai but it would not be enjoyable for me and i would not learn anything along the way.

[u/thedrexel → u/[deleted]]

You should reread my comment. You should also share your “endless” applications for use.

[u/thedrexel → u/[deleted]]

I’m not upset that it “can’t” do anything for me. My god your reading comprehension is really not good.

[u/thedrexel → u/[deleted]]

After a quick dive through your post history, I’m going to bow out of this thread. I didn’t need ai to figure out that you’re not as smart as you think you are either.

[u/Irlandes-de-la-Costa → u/[deleted]]

You don't need to learn shit to use chat GPT, it does all the work for you. Prompting is not a big skill, comparing it to playing an instrument or knitting is so wild.

If you aren't fact checking it and accept its words at face value, that's just willful ignorance.

So what's the point of Chat GPT when you still need to consult experts and do your research? Btw we are complaining about the people you are complaining.

[u/drakoman → u/[deleted]]

Gotta be honest, don’t think you’ll convince them. Looks like a typical r/aiwars post

Edit: I understand this isn’t a popular stance. I understand if you downvote me. Have a great Friday regardless :)

[u/whuaminow → u/[deleted]]

I'm in IT and I have to manage some aspects of AI in our business environment, like it or not, it's here. I think that this dismissive argument that it's not replacing "real artists" or "real writers" or "real" ... whatever is ignoring something that is really key to understanding the dilemma - a lot of real live people do work every day that isn't what you're calling "real". No AI will be writing Walt Whitman quality poetry, or Beethoven quality music, but a lot of jobs (and a lot of people's paychecks) are making good enough ad graphics, reporting on financial news, creating elevator music and summarizing documents. It's this group of activities, and a quickly widening swath of other work that is vulnerable to being swallowed up by AI. If an AI company swoops in and says that you can replace 100 people (or 5 people) with a $500/month AI subscription the business case is made, and those people are out on the street. We need to make informed choices as a society about what is best for everyone, and unfortunately the technology is moving far faster than society or a government can adapt to it or regulate it.

[u/Irlandes-de-la-Costa → u/whuaminow]

No AI will be writing Walt Whitman quality poetry, or Beethoven quality music

You poor thing. !remindme 5 years

[u/RemindMeBot → u/Irlandes-de-la-Costa]

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[u/drakoman → u/[deleted]]

I have been fascinated with the technology of neural networks and the subsequent methods utilizing them since the early days, so it’s interesting to me how hard popular opinion turned against anything AI. It will become ubiquitous, and that causes an uncertain future, understandably, but the whole future is uncertain anyway. I don’t think “AI” is making the world worse, and in fact it will enable lots of future technologies that will help progress us in so many fields. I’m hopeful.