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Los Angeles continues to battle devastating wildfires over a week has passed yet. The Inferno is still spreading how did the fire start investigators are searching for answers. Speculation is running wild climate change faulty power lines deliberate arson management mismanagement of resources.
Anything and everything is being blamed but one theory is gaining more traction than the rest. ChatGPT caused the wildfires that's right social. Media has a newcap goat ChatGPT.
The same AI chat bot that can do maths and Pen poems before we tell you why let's quickly also look at the situation. On the ground 25 people have died 6 million remain under a fire threat. Two fires are currently active the Palisades and the eaten fires. Firefighters are battling these blazes but powerful winds make it very difficult. The conditions are expected to ease this weekend but Los Angeles still has a long road to recovery which brings us to the culprit social media users say ChatGPT caused the fires but is that true is ChatGPT really responsible for the fires and why social media blaming artificial intelligence to understand that let's look at how chat GPT Works imagine you type a prompt into ChatGPT.
The Prompt is turned into code. This code flows through a network of servers. The servers run thousands of complex calculations and ultimately they produce the best possible response for you. Now all of this happens on massive power hungry servers. These servers work hard so they generate Heat lots of heat and so data centers need to prevent overheating for that they rely on cooling systems and this is where water plays a crucial role. Cooling towers use vast amounts of water just to keep servers at optimal temperatures.
Essentially ChatGPT is a water guzzler to put it in perspective. A 100w email needs around a bottle of water same for every four to five prompts. ChatGPT gulps almost 500 ml of water for this now let's zoom out and look at the larger picture. In 2024 ChatGPT had 300 million weekly active users 300 million weekly active users so you can imagine the amount of energy it consumed and the scale of water it needed and that is why social media is complaining.
Los Angeles is located in Southern California. This is a region that is experienced drought in the past which means water is already scarce. Here the wildfires exposed that scarcity and made it worse. The fires began on January 7th. Soon fire hydrant were low on water. The LA fire department was panned and that's when social media started connecting the dots.
ChatGPT relies on water Los Angeles is running out of water so naturally ChatGPT must be to blame. The fact is this Theory holds little water. The fire hydrants ran dry because of overwhelming Demand on top of that. The municipal water system is poorly designed. It cannot handle the demands of fast moving wildfires so this is not an AI problem. This is an infrastructure problem but that does not let ChatGPT off the hook entirely.
Yes. It is responsible for not responsible rather for this particular fire but it is very much part of a bigger problem. Our planet is heating up extreme weather. Events are make are becoming increasingly common like these wildfires in Los Angeles. Addressing the crisis needs Collective action you need to conserve natural resources like water instead you're building more AI.
Data centers that use gallons of water and electricity to write emails. So you can see where the problem is. The crisis in La is a wakeup call. It's not just about the Technologies we use today. It's about how we manage the infrastructure that supports this. Tech AI companies will also have to do better. They must find other cooling. Alternatives or move data centers to cooler climates after all.
The future of AI does not just lie in the promise of intelligence. It lies in how responsibly it can be integrated into our world. As for that email that you're delaying you don't need chatGPT to write it. You can type it out yourself. It will only take five more minutes of your time.