@saxicola @nantucketebooks @gerrymcgovern By my rough...

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@saxicola @nantucketebooks @gerrymcgovern

By my rough calculation, a human goes through about 4% of the water ChatGPT uses if the person or bot is answering a page of questions.

That's the same as what the Google search uses—1/25th of the evaporation for a chatbot.

Like 13 May at 15:40 | Wall-to-wall | Open on mastodon.art

15 comments

Saxicola ✅ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇪🇺

@shadowfals @nantucketebooks @gerrymcgovern
Excellent! I love the people here, when you get proper (science based) answers to speculative questions.

13 May at 16:56 | Open on toot.community

Gerry McGovern

@shadowfals
There is nothing--so far--more efficient and economical than the human brain and body to do stuff. I did some calculations a while back and found that remembering something was so less polluting and energy intense than searching a search engine for it.

If you have to burn energy, burn your own energy.
Think first.
Remember first.

@saxicola @nantucketebooks

If you have to burn energy, burn your own energy.
Think first.
Remember first.

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13 May at 17:45 | Open on mastodon.green

Saxicola ✅ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇪🇺

@gerrymcgovern @shadowfals @nantucketebooks
Hence "The Matrix" may have a valid point perhaps.

13 May at 17:47 | Open on toot.community

argv minus one

@gerrymcgovern

I don't know about your brain, but mine tends to lose stored information over time. As it ages, its storage capacity shrinks ever further.

I imagine this is why written language was invented. Words on paper don't fade so quickly.

@shadowfals @saxicola @nantucketebooks

13 May at 21:12 | Open on mstdn.party

Saxicola ✅ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇪🇺

@argv_minus_one @gerrymcgovern @shadowfals @nantucketebooks
At my age I barely any information left. I know where the shops and pubs are though.

13 May at 21:13 | Open on toot.community

argv minus one

@gerrymcgovern

As for search engines, the point of them is to find information I need when I don't know where to find it. How else would I do that? By walking up to random people on the street and asking them questions? I'd be lucky if none of them violently attacked me, let alone gave me useful answers.

@shadowfals @saxicola @nantucketebooks

13 May at 21:14 | Open on mstdn.party

Martijn

@shadowfals @saxicola @nantucketebooks @gerrymcgovern I'd love to see those calculations.

13 May at 19:29 | Open on masto.ai

Saxicola ✅ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇪🇺

@chaosmonkey @shadowfals @nantucketebooks @gerrymcgovern
Me: Opens new spreadsheet. (LibreOffice obvioisly).

13 May at 20:38 | Open on toot.community

Acin

@chaosmonkey @saxicola

I started with how much time a human subject matter expert might take to write out quick answers like if chatting with a curious friend or a story writer. This is from my personal experience with authors, tech researchers, avid forums helpers, and educators—compared to what I know of ChatGPT. So, you know, it's a guesstimate.

For the comparable queries with at least chatbot-level accuracy: 15 minutes, or a quarter of an hour.

(...continued in next post)

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13 May at 20:43 | Open on mastodon.art

Acin

@chaosmonkey @saxicola

I needed something quick for how much water the model person would use. That was "an average person needs eight cups of water a day".

8 cups / 24 hours = 0.3333 cups/hour

A quarter of that is 0.0833 cups / 15 minutes.

1.000 litre = 4.227 cups

0.0833 / 4.227 = 0.0197 litres

But I'd needed half a litre, not a litre in the conversion, so the number is doubled for 0.0394.

As a percentage, that's rounded to 4%.

13 May at 20:44 | Open on mastodon.art

Saxicola ✅ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇪🇺

@shadowfals @chaosmonkey
Nicely done. I hope @chaosmonkey is satisfied.

13 May at 20:48 | Open on toot.community

Martijn

@saxicola @shadowfals I always welcome and appreciate open, honest, transparent and civil discourse / reactions based on facts and logic. 😀

The calculation has definitely given me food for thought.

13 May at 21:02 | Open on masto.ai

Saxicola ✅ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇪🇺

@chaosmonkey @shadowfals
Calcuation food <> farming food.. But I get your point.

13 May at 21:04 | Open on toot.community

Martijn

@shadowfals @saxicola I appreciate the calculation and by extension your transparency. ❤️

Personally I would probably have started with the premise of "the average person requires at least two litres of water per day" but that's what I'm used to.

I think I'll try out some similar calculations. Maybe create a site where people can compare energy expenditure between various things like "the average google search" or "three minutes of youtube"

13 May at 20:54 | Open on masto.ai

Acin

@chaosmonkey where I live, cups are more commonly used as measurement. I had to look up the conversion to litres. Starting with litres would definitely be simpler!

13 May at 21:25 | Open on mastodon.art