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@pixelherodev@fosstodon.org @drewdevault@fosstodon.org @dym
I agree that instituting a carbon tax that captures the true externalities cost of the training & running would probably increase the cost to users, though I'd venture a guess that this would not dissuade OpenAI from training & running the system at the given demand.
Let's see. 100mio. customers. Let's say 1% of those pays for plus. $20/month for a year is $2.4 mio./year.
@pixelherodev@fosstodon.org @drewdevault@fosstodon.org @dym
So they might be able to pay off the training externalities in ~2 years, more if they also pay off the cost of running the model.
@pixelherodev@fosstodon.org @drewdevault@fosstodon.org @dym If you spend 1% of that on carbon offsetting you can purchase carbon offsets for $24k, which amounts to ~250 tons of carbon (at ~$100 for capturing a ton of carbon[1], using things like preventing rainforest deforestation, and this report[2] says it's more like $10). This page[3] estimates that training chatGPT produced ~550 tons of carbon.
[1]: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/what-most-cost-effective-way-buy-carbon-offsets
[2]: https://founderspledge.com/research/fp-climate-change, p. 83
[3]: https://towardsdatascience.com/the-carbon-footprint-of-chatgpt-66932314627d