Sam Altman says AI may be energy-intensive, but humans consume a lot of energy, too

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman doubled down on his argument that artificial intelligence (AI) should not be singled out for its energy and water footprint, since humans also consume a lot of energy and resources to become “smart”.

Speaking at an Indian Express event in New Delhi, Altman said public debate often fixates on the electricity used to train large AI models while ignoring the cost of human intelligence. “People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model,” he said. “But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart.”