/AI22h ago

Report Details GPT-4 Training's 600 Million Liter Water Footprint

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#1693Andy Masley
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Andy Masley@AndyMasley#1693inAI

New unit for measuring the water used by a major industry just dropped

11:18 AM · Jun 5, 2026 · 22.8K Views
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Users objected to the UN report on GPT-4 training's water footprint for making crazy decisions with its comparisons to things like Olympic pools.

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Andy Masley@AndyMasley

This is a new report from the UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health and it is one of the most insane documents on AI I've ever read. It's just full of these unbelievable comparisons we'd immediately clock as crazy for any other industry. https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:10647/UNU-INWEH-Report-The_Env_Cost_of_AI-2026.pdf

Andy Masley@AndyMasley

New unit for measuring the water used by a major industry just dropped

22hViews 15KLikes 213Bookmarks 27
Andy Masley@AndyMasley

Like what the fuck are they doing?

Andy Masley@AndyMasley

This is a new report from the UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health and it is one of the most insane documents on AI I've ever read. It's just full of these unbelievable comparisons we'd immediately clock as crazy for any other industry. https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:10647/UNU-INWEH-Report-The_Env_Cost_of_AI-2026.pdf

22hViews 1.7KLikes 62Bookmarks 0
Andy Masley@AndyMasley
Andy Masley@AndyMasley

Like what the fuck are they doing?

22hViews 1.8KLikes 40Bookmarks 0
Andy Masley@AndyMasley

This whole report makes a lot of crazy decisions with their comparisons https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:10647/UNU-INWEH-Report-The_Env_Cost_of_AI-2026.pdf

Andy Masley@AndyMasley

New unit for measuring the water used by a major industry just dropped

22hViews 1.2KLikes 21Bookmarks 2
snowblind@lostodds

@AndyMasley it seems like the entire "omg dc's use so much water" conversation is couched in most people's lack of intuition on what constitutes "a lot of water"

22hViews 43Likes 2