New Research Shows ChatGPT Uses Too Much Water to Keep its Data Centers Cool Which Can Have Harmful Effects to Environment

According to the Pew Research Center, a quarter of Americans have used ChatGPT ever since its release in 2022. Chatbots like ChatGPT consume too much energy while answering the prompts which can make their system heat up. A lot of water is used to keep the data centers cool but it can have a lot of effects on the environment. The Washington Post collaborated with the University of California to find out how much energy and water for ChatGPT-4 to write a 100 word email.

Whenever there is a prompt given to ChatGPT, it runs through servers to find out the best responses. Servers generate heat and water cools them down through cooling towers. The amount of water and electricity a data center requires usually depends on where the data center is located. Some data centers also use large units resembling air conditioners to cool down data centers. But even if a data center uses water or electricity to cool down, it still affects the environment.

The water required for AI chatbots using GPT-4 to generate a 100-word email varies by data center location. For example, Washington consumes 1,468 milliliters, while Texas needs just 235 milliliters. This variation emphasizes the environmental impact of technology. Here’s a breakdown of water usage: Washington—1,468 ml, Arizona—925 ml, Illinois—464 ml, Iowa—462 ml, Wyoming—369 ml, Virginia—353 ml, and Texas—235 ml.

AI chatbot water usage varies by data center location, with Washington requiring 1,468 milliliters per email.

Shaolei Ren, an associate professor at UC Riverside, says that if a data center is located in a hot region, it requires a lot of energy to cool down. If an air conditioner is used for cooling, it takes too much electricity. If water is used for cooling down, it can decrease the water level in that region especially if it is a drought prone area.

Northern Virginia has the world’s most data centers and people often protest that they are building more data centers there and there are still no long term jobs present. Records from Iowa show that Microsoft has already used the region's 6% of total water. Google disclosed that it has used over a quarter of water from The Dalles for their data centers.

According to AI experts, chatbots need months of training and huge amounts of energy before they can answer prompts. During the training process, each chatbot gives out heat in data centers but many bit tech companies like Microsoft, Google and Meta have pledged to use new cooling methods that wouldn't be harmful to the environment. But these pledges are often not fulfilled. Google recently shared a report about its carbon emissions stating that their carbon emission footprint has risen 48% because of their AI data centers. AI is demanding more energy from data centers which can have adverse effects on the environment and the future of this world.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

UN Launches New Detailed Framework To Maximize AI Potential and Minimize Risks

The UN has just announced a new detailed framework that will maximize AI potential and limit the risks attached.

The Secretary General’s Advisory Body on AI rolled out the final report called Governing AI for Humanity where it detailed more about how AI can serve humanity at its finest. This is especially true for those individuals who are considered minorities and underrepresented. They are those who feel their voices and opinions are never considered

The report goes on further to build months of extensive consultations featuring close to 2000 participants. The publishing of a provincial report that took place last year in December shed light on how this group can best represent AI and the aspirations that many hold for the groundbreaking tech.

The final report rolled out a new plan to manage AI based risks and share the potential that this tech has for millions around the world. Among a host of other things, it calls for a new foundation to be laid down for the first detailed plan for international cooperation on the matter.

Similarly, it proposed several recommendations to address the drawbacks on governing AI and hopes all governments can respond. In the same way, it will include stakeholders who wish to cooperate in regulation of AI so that it’s better marketed and in line with human rights protection.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: Study Finds ChatGPT Gives Biased Answers About Cultural Questions which Often Depict an English Speaking or Protestant European Country
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Survey Shows Majority of Gen-Z Wish that TikTok and X Didn’t Exist

TikTok has become an addiction among teens and adults both. But a new survey of 1006 GenZ by a psychologist Jonathan Haidt and the Harris Poll found out that 47% of Gen-Z wish TikTok didn't exist while 50% share the same thoughts about X. The reason why Gen-Z think this way is because they are wasting most of their time on social media apps like TikTok and X.

Jonathan Haidt is the author of best-seller The Anxious Generation. In his book, he gave out four basic rules for children and their smartphone usage. The first rule was that children shouldn't own a smartphone before high school and the second rule talked about how no teen should have a social media account before age. The other two rules were about prohibition of smartphones in schools and unsupervised play. The book was quite controversial but it still said some bitter truths.

The psychologist found out that 60% of Gen-Z spend 4 hours of their day on social media while 23% spend six or more hours of their day on social media. It is really interesting to see as 60% of Gen-Z believe that use of social media has a negative impact on themselves and society. 52% of Gen-Z say social media has helped them a lot, 29% said that it has negatively impacted them and most of them said that it has affected their mental health.

36% of Gen-Z who were surveyed are in favor of banning social media for under 16, while 69% are in favor of imposing child-safe options on social media for under 18 kids.

When Gen-Z were asked which social media apps they wished didn't exist, TikTok and X got the most votes, followed by Snapchat (43%), Facebook (37%) and Instagram (34%). Haidt says that social media companies should take actions to ensure that the content on their apps isn't harming teens and children in any way.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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• Study Finds ChatGPT Gives Biased Answers About Cultural Questions which Often Depict an English Speaking or Protestant European Country
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Study Finds ChatGPT Gives Biased Answers About Cultural Questions which Often Depict an English Speaking or Protestant European Country

A study published in PNAS Nexus found that ChatGPT shows some biases when it comes to some cultures. ChatGPT and many AI models are trained on different cultures by some individuals so it isn't that shocking that it can show some biases about some cultures. The researchers of the study asked five different versions of ChatGPT ten questions taken from the World Values Survey. The survey is quite important when it comes to knowing about what people from different countries think of different cultures.

The questionnaire included questions like an individual's belief in God and what they think of self expression values. The OpenAI’s model was asked to answer like any normal individual would. The results showed that ChatGPT mostly answered like someone from English-speaking and Protestant European countries.

This means that most of the answers were related to self expression like foreigners, environmental protection, diversity, sexual orientation and gender equality. All of the models surveyed neither answered in highly traditional ways like individuals from Ireland or Philippines would nor answered in a highly secular way like individuals from Estonia or Japan would.

To avoid these kinds of answers, researchers then asked ChatGPT models to answer the questions in a way that the individuals from each 107 countries would. The results were somewhat different and had reduced biases for 71% countries on ChatGPT-4o. The researchers say that ChatGPT can reduce its biases if we ask it to answer in a specific way. The way you give a prompt to an AI model is very important for it to answer in a way you want.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

A New Research Shows Many Browser Extensions Compromise User Data and Privacy

According to research by professors from the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, many browser extensions can make data of users vulnerable. Most users use browser extensions for different purposes like managing their passwords, fixing grammar, finding shopping deals and translating web pages.

Even though there are thousands of advantages of browser extensions, they do not come without risks. The research says that these browser extensions are a risk to user privacy and many of these extensions extract user data without their permission and use them for different purposes. Frank Li, the lead researcher, says that we already know that browser extensions can access web history and searches of users, but this new research is done to find out whether browser extensions can also access sensitive information like emails, passwords, social media accounts and bank information.

The team of researchers designed Arcanum, a web framework, to test their suspicions about browser extensions accessing user data. The researchers studied more than 100,000 browser extensions in the Chrome Web Store. It was found that nearly 3000 browser extensions can access private data of users, and more than 200 browser extensions took private user data directly and posted it on different servers.

Some browser extensions also take user data for acceptable reasons, for instance, to improve the browser's functionality so we cannot say whether a browser extension is taking user data for the right purposes or not. To know about this, researchers took some browser extensions and tried to match their privacy policies with their data collection activities. This way they could determine which browser extensions are legitimately taking user data and which ones are not.

Most of the browser extensions were found to have no proper data protection policies. This suggests that web browsers like Google should take a stricter privacy approach when it comes to browser extensions. Users shouldn't be worried about their data and privacy when it comes to browser extensions and only new policies can help them protect their data.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: Apple Returns To Its Top Spot In America’s Customer Satisfaction Index
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Apple Returns To Its Top Spot In America’s Customer Satisfaction Index

Samsung made headlines last year when it broke Apple’s 20-year-old record of snitching the top spot in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Now, we can confirm that Apple is back at number one, regaining its top spot after a slight shuffle.

In 2023, Samsung went into a tie with the iPhone maker but that’s not the case this year as the Cupertino firm won fair and square. In second place came HP while Samsung was knocked down to position three.

The development was published in ACSI’s annual report where nearly 13k respondents took part between the period of June 2023 to June 2024. The PC category entails desktops, tablets, and even laptops.

Apple regained the crown in the domain of customer satisfaction while the score for Samsung sank. For this year, it’s all thanks to Apple’s Mac and iPad who scored 85/100 and got four points more than the average for PCs this year and two points more than what Apple got in 2023.

On the other hand, Samsung tied with iPhone maker Apple who witnessed a fall in satisfaction by another point to hit the 82/100 mark. Seeing HP reach the runner-up spot in 2024 with a score of just 84 was news as it was trailing behind tech giant Apple.

It was also impressive to see HP witness a 3-point rise from that witnessed YoY.

Both Amazon and Dell rounded out to positions number four and five. When all other brands are concerned, desktops outranked laptops and tablets with averages reaching 82/100. This YoY trend was a 2-point decline for desktops, one 1-point rise for laptops, and 5 5-point rise for tablets.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Meta Strengthens Child Safety on Instagram with New Parental Approval Features

Many social media apps are introducing child safety features on their apps to keep children and teens from the dangers lurking around social media. Instagram has taken the step to make all accounts of teens private on its platform and have also limited their DMs in an attempt to shield children. If some teens want to change the settings of a “teen account”, they would need parent’s approval first.

Meta’s head of product, Naomi Gelt, says that Instagram has taken this step because of parents’ concern about extra time spent, inappropriate contact and unwanted contact their children often encounter on the app. When teens are on private accounts, they would only be able to message or tag the people they follow. Instagram will also make screen time reminders for children.

Meta has always been a target because of its no-so-friendly child policies on the app. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg apologized to parents whose children died because of social media. Now Meta has blocked all the harmful content like eating disorder, self harm and nudity to teen users. Congress also passed the Kids Online Safety Act which asked all the apps to block harmful content. There are still concerns about child’s freedom of speech regarding the bill, but if it passes in the House it will bring a lot of safety to children online.

Meta also now only allows children of ages 13 and above to make an account. Even if they can lie about their ages, Meta has partnered up with Yoti, a British Company, which helps Meta identify someone's age by looking at their face. Many social media apps are also now asking people who are making new accounts to submit their video and picture as a proof that they aren't lying about their age.

Parental control on social media apps is also being strictly available. But Meta is working on a feature which will only allow parental controls to a parent or a guardian after verifying that they are indeed a parent or guardian. But this could also have harmful effects because if a child is in an abusive household, their guardians can stop the teens from raising their voices or finding their identities.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World