Google games numbers to make AI look less thirsty

AI's drinking habit has been grossly overstated, according to a newly published report from Google, which claims that software advancements have cut Gemini's water consumption per prompt to roughly five drops of water — substantially less than prior estimates. Flaunting a comprehensive new test methodology, Google estimates [ …

[Blackjack]

I think that what they are doing is just nerfing the free version since that's the most used one.

If they want to save even more power why not turn off the AI in Google search by default?

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Think of how much they could save it they turned it all off!

[Anonymous Coward]

So flat out lying then.

Move them up the list of "qualified to work with DOGE"

[Alex 72]

Maybe they asked Gemini how much water it uses vs other models, this would be mild given some of the hallucinations reported in testing other LLMs

[AVR]

Fairly easy to force the desired result

If you want a particular (low) result you might consider only the marginal power change from getting a response, and not any baseline power required, power required to run computers to train the model, or to operate all those web crawlers and similar. Maybe the Google guy is more honest than that, but with the reported dishonest answer I'd need to be convinced.

[JWLong]

Nurfing?

How about:

Figure's don't lie, but

Liars do figure.

Like an Excell spreadsheet, you can make it say anything you want.

I'm sure multiple PR firms were employed in the generation of this report.

[xyz123]

What Google REALLY needs to do is fudge the numbers to hide the fact google.com searchs are down 40% since January and Corporate API contract renewals are down 80% for the same period.

Google is literally staring death in the face, like Yahoo etc before it.

But they'll keep soldiering on until they get rid of search completely, have Gemini as the sole source of results and kill the company stone dead.

Then it'll be torn apart by 'investors'

[b0llchit]

Ad slinger lets AI add numbers

The prompt they used must have been something like:

Write a report discrediting AI energy usage reports created by <fill-in-blank> and create a new report with a believable set of numbers that lets us look great in comparison to any other report. The new report should make us look at least 30 times better and should make all the competition look bad.

[O'Reg Inalsin]

Google estimates [PDF] its Gemini apps consume 0.24 watt hours of electricity and 0.26 milliliters (ml) of water to generate the median-length text prompt.

So that means a programmer using Gemini uses a 0.24 watt hours per hour. Not quite. It means a programmer using continuous input parsing with real time suggestions flying back and forth, say once every 2 seconds, would be using 0.24 * 3600/2 = 432 watts on average. (LED bulb in head illuminates)

[herman]

Dry cooling

Examples of Dry-Cooled Power Stations

Kendal Power Station (South Africa): Uses an indirect dry-cooled system.

Matimba Power Station (South Africa): An Eskom giant using direct dry-cooling technology, significantly reducing water consumption in a water-scarce area.

Majuba Power Station (South Africa): Employs direct dry cooling.

Kusile Power Station (South Africa): Another large station that utilizes direct dry cooling.

Medupi Power Station (South Africa): Also uses direct dry-cooling technology.