In a first, Google has released data on how much energy an AI prompt uses

Re:In a first, Google has released data on how much energy a... by swader999 on Thursday August 21, 2025 @11:07AM (#44973729)

I asked GPT 5 to extrapolate this to a Max Claude code monthly usage, two sessions a day, just business days. It guessed that would be 21k prompts a month. Google’s proxy numbers give a monthly footprint of ~5.1 kWh, ~5.53 L water, and ~0.64 kg CO₂e for heavy CC use.

That's equivalent to doing less than two miles driving(CO2), one toilet flush (water) and about three dryer loads of laundry.

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Re:In a first, Google has released data on how much energy a... by IshKebab on Thursday August 21, 2025 @12:17PM (#44974568)

Using AI to calculate a trivial multiplication...

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Re:In a first, Google has released data on how much energy a... by swader999 on Thursday August 21, 2025 @01:28PM (#44975567)

Yep, I'm weaker than you.

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Re:In a first, Google has released data on how much energy a... by oulipo2 on Thursday August 21, 2025 @11:55AM (#44974343)

Sure, but now multiply that "new use-case" that we weren't consuming before by 7 billion humans on the planet... that's the issue

We can always keep adding new stuff and say each time "oh but it's small"... sure, but if we keep adding more, altogether it becomes huge

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Re:In a first, Google has released data on how much energy a... by swader999 on Friday August 22, 2025 @07:33AM (#44983229)

And then what kind of reaction will we have when inference and work is less intensive environment wise for AI to do vs a human? That may even already be the case. See here: https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMw%3D%3D_60f4890d-711b-4331-9... credit: HN user pama

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