OpenAI's Sam Altman addressed the environmental impact of ChatGPT during an interview at the AI Impact Summit held in India. He pointed out that raising a human requires approximately 20 years of food and the evolution of billions of ancestors, arguing that this energy consumption is often underestimated compared to AI data centers.
Altman Claims AI Data Centers Are More Energy Efficient Than Raising Humans
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Altman concluded that, by that method of calculation, AI may have already caught up in terms of energy efficiency. In response to these remarks, Sridhar Vembu, co-founder of Zoho who was in attendance, countered on X, stating that a world where technology and humans are equated is not desirable.
Criticism of Altman erupted across social media. One Reddit user described him as "pathologically malicious," pointing out that he fails to understand that the value of human life transcends cost-benefit analysis. Tech analyst Max Weinback also commented that reducing humans to "cost per output" is the wrong path.
Altman has previously expressed concerns regarding the possibility of AI ending the world and the propriety of releasing ChatGPT. In his recent remarks, he also stated that the world needs to transition rapidly to nuclear, wind, and solar power. Notably, Altman serves as the chairman of the nuclear startup Oklo.
Source: Human Existence Is Just as Wasteful as AI Data Centers, Sam Altman Suggests（HN 56pt・31コメント）（HN Search (backfill)、2026-02-24）