The University of Rhode Island’s AI lab estimates that GPT-5 averages just over 18 Wh per query, so putting all of ChatGPT’s reported 2.5 billion requests a day through the model could see energy usage as high as 45 GWh.
A daily energy use of 45 GWh is enormous. A typical modern nuclear power plant produces between 1 and 1.6 GW of electricity per reactor per hour, so data centers running OpenAI’s GPT-5 at 18 Wh per query could require the power equivalent of two to three nuclear power reactors, an amount that could be enough to power a small country.
Help me out here. What designates the “response” type? Someone asking it to make a picture? Write a 20 page paper? Code a small app?
Response Type is decided by ChatGPTs new routing function based on your input. So yeah. Asking it to “think long and hard”, which I have seen people advocating for to get better results recently, will trigger the thinking model and waste more resources.
So instead of just saying “thank you” I now have to say “think long and hard about how much this means to me”?
FFS, I have been using Claude to code, not only do you have to tell Claude to fix compilation errors, you have to point out when Claude says “it’s fixed” - “no, it’s not, the function you said you added is STILL missing.”
If you want it to really use a lot of energy on receiving your gratitude, sure I guess^^