Sam Altman defends AI’s energy toll by saying it also takes a lot to ‘train a human’
The OpenAI boss, Sam Altman, has tried to ease concerns about how much power is used by artificial intelligence models by comparing it to the amount of energy required by human development.“People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model – but it also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” Altman told the Indian Express recently while in India for the AI Impact summit.“It takes about 20 years of life – and all the food you consume during that time – before you become smart.”Despite that defense, he said that the public assessment of AI’s energy consumption was “fair”, adding: “We need to move towards nuclear or wind and solar very quickly.”Those remarks come amid growing discussion about the environmental impact of the datacenters required to power AI models – and, more generally, about technology’s possible impact on society.
Datacenters accounted for about 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency.The organization projects that such consumption will increase about 15% each year from 2024 to 2030, more than four times faster than the growth of electricity consumption from all other sectors.“The demand for new datacenters cannot be met in a sustainable way,” Noman Bashir, a computing and climate impact fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s climate and sustainability consortium, told MIT’s news outlet.“The pace at which companies are building new datacenters means the bulk of the electricity to power them must come from fossil fuel-based power plants.
”In December, more than 230 environmental groups called for a moratorium on building datacenters in the US,“The rapid, largely unregulated rise of datacenters to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans’ economic, environmental, climate and water security,” their letter states,At the AI conference, Altman also downplayed concerns about the water datacenters require,“Water is totally fake,It used to be true.
We used to do evaporative cooling in datacenters, but now … we don’t do that,” Altman said.“You see things on the internet, [like]: ‘Don’t use ChatGPT.It’s 17 gallons of water for each query or whatever.’ This is completely untrue – totally insane.”CNBC reported that “some newer data centers no longer rely on water at all”.
The director of the Southern New Hampshire University office of sustainability, Mike Weinstein, told the Guardian he was skeptical of the argument from Altman and other AI advocates that the power such infrastructure demands is justified because the technology will help alleviate global problems,A September 2025 report from OpenAI on how people use ChatGPT found that 70% of messages to the bot were not work related,“It didn’t look like the majority of use of that was for figuring out how we solve challenges in food systems and energy systems, so that would be my skepticism of saying this technology is worth it because I have yet to see it demonstrated,” Weinstein said,Altman’s remarks generated a backlash online, with some people describing them as dystopian,“He’s saying a really big spreadsheet and a baby are morally equivalent,” Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, posted on X.
“One reason to believe that life is divine is so that you don’t allow sociopaths like this anywhere near anything important.”The sports commentator and TV host Jeff Johnson compared Altman’s comments to the Netflix series Black Mirror, which explores potential harms from new technology.“Notice the disturbing techy parlance that he uses to describe the general human experience,” Johnson wrote on X.“Training?!’ Too many people are falling for [it].Y’all really lettin these geeks destroy the Earth.
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Keir Starmer opens investigation into Josh Simons over targeting of reporters
Keir Starmer has opened a formal investigation into a Cabinet Office minister involved in falsely accusing journalists of having links to pro-Russian propaganda.The prime minister’s decision follows revelations in the Guardian that Josh Simons, who was running the thinktank Labour Together at the time, was also involved in telling British intelligence officials that another journalist was “living with” the daughter of a former adviser to Jeremy Corbyn. Officials were told by Simons’ team that the former adviser was “suspected of links to Russian intelligence”.The prime minister has asked his independent adviser on ministerial standards, Laurie Magnus, to examine Simons’ conduct. Magnus’s involvement was first reported by the Observer
The minister and the alleged smear campaign: key unanswered questions
The Cabinet Office minister at the centre of a growing scandal over an alleged smear campaign in which he falsely linked journalists to a “pro-Kremlin” network is facing mounting questions over the candour of his public statements.Josh Simons ran Labour Together, a thinktank that faced press scrutiny in November 2023 over £730,000 in undeclared political donations.Simons commissioned an American public affairs company, Apco, to investigate the sourcing of the story, which appeared in the Sunday Times. The story was based on documents obtained by the freelance journalist Paul Holden, which were due to feature in further stories published by an American journalist, Matt Taibbi.The Labour minister has conceded that Apco “never fully got to the bottom” of the sourcing of the story
Reform UK’s ICE-style deportation plan condemned as ‘sadistic’
Reform UK’s plan to create an ICE-style deportation agency has been condemned as “sadistic”, after the party’s home affairs spokesperson vowed to face down “progressive outrage”.Zia Yusuf, introduced as “the shadow home secretary” at a press conference in Dover, said mass deportations carried out by a planned UK Deportation Command would not trigger the same kind of violent showdowns seen in the US because “policing is done by consent” in the UK. He also described the number of migrants arriving in the country as an “invasion”.His remarks came as Reform set out plans to tackle immigration, including mass deportations, expanded surveillance powers and a ban on the conversion of churches into mosques.The party also wants to scrap indefinite leave to remain, replacing it with a renewable five-year work visa and dedicated spouse visa
Martin Lewis ambushes Badenoch on Good Morning Britain over student loans plan
Kemi Badenoch has faced what could be described as the stuff of nightmares for a UK politician being interviewed about a personal finance policy: being ambushed and contradicted live on air by Martin Lewis.As the Conservative leader was being interviewed on ITV about her party’s plans to cut interest rates for some student loans, Lewis, a campaigner and finance expert, marched on to the set to announce that he completely disagreed.Ed Balls, who had been interviewing Badenoch for Good Morning Britain, had challenged her on whether the Tory plan would help only former students in the highest-paying jobs. After Badenoch insisted this was not the case, Lewis began shouting from off-set before walking into shot to side with Balls, eventually ending up sitting on the sofa.While Badenoch stuck to her view, polling shows that Lewis, who styles himself as a money-saving expert, is heavily trusted by much of the public on personal finance matters
Reform would create ICE-style agency and end leave to remain, Zia Yusuf to say
Reform UK would create an ICE-style agency dedicated to deporting hundreds of thousands of people, as well as terminating the status of those with indefinite leave to remain (ILR), the party will say.It would also ban the conversion of churches into mosques and fund a radical expansion of stop and search, the party’s new home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, will also say in a speech on Monday. The deradicalisation programme Prevent would also have its mandate redrawn to focus on Islamist extremism.Labour said the plans were divisive and showed that Reform was planning “to deport people who have followed the rules, worked hard and built their lives here – our friends, neighbours and colleagues”.The Labour party’s chair, Anna Turley, said the policies were “a direct attack on settled families and fundamentally un-British”
Labour must take drastic action to regain its standing | Letters
The plans set out by Larry Elliott certainly suggest a way forward for the Starmer government (If Keir Starmer is ousted, Labour could still win the next election. Here’s how that would work, 19 February). But politics and political approval also involve a balance sheet in which there has to be some recognition of the negative ways in which support had been lost. For many liberals, “old” Labour voters and sections of the left, Keir Starmer lost credibility on three issues: the relatively trivial one of “freebies”, and the much more substantive ones of benefit cuts for the most vulnerable and policies concerning Gaza.All the political choices taken in these contexts ignored values and ideals with long histories, not least of democratic commitment to the mitigation of the abuse of power and the needs of the most powerless
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Sam Altman defends AI’s energy toll by saying it also takes a lot to ‘train a human’
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