I've made this point a bunch of times, but as Simon Willison says, "here's a follow-up by someone with a whole lot more credibility than myself." Long story short: ChatGPT generates a much smaller carbon footprint than you may have been led to believe. I ran the numbers once and found that if you use ChatGPT it's about the same footprint as having a coffee. Or maybe turn off one of the lights in your house. Or as this article puts it: electricity consumption per person in the U.S. per day: 34,000 Watt-hours (Wh). One ChatGPT query: 3 Wh. "Unless you're an extreme power user, asking AI questions every day is still a rounding error on your total electricity footprint." And if your energy generation is generally carbon-neutral (as it is here where I live in Ontario, Canada) then using electricity produces almost no carbon footprint. See also: Andy Masley.
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