Arweave TX
Fabian Owuor
Ever asked your AI assistant to write you a spicy tweet or whip up a poem about quantum pickles, only to later realize you just consumed enough electricity to toast a family-sized loaf of bread and emptied a small bottle of Keringet?
Welcome to the not-so-carbon-neutral age of artificial intelligence, where each individual query requires about 3 watt-hours of electricity. That’s 10 TIMES what your Google search uses. Yes, that means asking “Is AI taking over the world?” is literally helping it do so... one expensive watt at a time.
Let’s break it down, shall we?
Every time you ask an AI a question like, “Should I text my ex?” or “What’s the best way to boil an egg while emotionally healing?” you’re lighting up a server farm somewhere. And I mean lighting up — like powering all the lights in KICC.
Need an image of a cat dressed as Napoleon? Buckle up, Picasso, because that single image generation consumes enough power to run 14 LED bulbs for an hour. Hope that meow was worth the meltdown.
Servers get hot. Like “sweaty palms before a job interview” hot. To stop them from becoming high-tech lava pits, they require water. Lots of it. Apparently, generating a single 100-word email can require the equivalent of one bottle of water, just to keep things cool.
So yes, while you're saving time by letting AI tell your boss, “Looking forward to the meeting,” the Earth is gently weeping in the background. Somewhere, a dolphin is side-eyeing you.
You know what could maybe solve this? Nuclear power.
Not the kind that turns ants into Godzilla, but the sleek, modern, carbon-free kind that powers your favorite dystopian sci-fi movie. With AI chugging juice like a dehydrated elephant at a Red Bull party, we're going to need ALL the clean, reliable energy we can get.
Solar panels are nice. Wind turbines? Lovely. But unless we plan on building a solar farm the size of the Sahara Desert and a windmill every 10 meters, we’re going to need the nuclear option — literally.
Artificial General Intelligence — the holy grail of AI — might one day be able to do everything a human can do. Only faster. And with a snarky British accent, if we’re lucky.
But what will AGI’s power bill look like?
Nobody knows. But chances are, if you gave it access to a fusion reactor, it would still say, “Yeah, I could use a little more juice.” It might even build its own power plant out of spite.
AI is thirsty, hot, and needs a nap (powered by 3 megawatts).
Your memes are melting glaciers.
Image generation? Basically, an energy vampire with a paintbrush.
We need nuclear power, or at least one very, very big hamster wheel.
AGI will probably demand its own moon base.
So next time you ask your AI to generate a Shakespearean roast battle between Elon Musk and a toaster, just remember — you're powering the future. One lightbulb, one bottle of water, and one nuclear reactor at a time.
The robots aren’t coming — they’re already here. And they’re thirsty.