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1. hiAndr+(OP)[view] [source] 2023-11-08 21:26:13
Let's zeroth-order a single GPT-4 query as using 0.01 kWh (which is probably massive overkill for most queries but we'll roll with it).

Let's high ball US residential electricity prices are about 25¢ per kWh. So 25¢ of electricity gets us 100 GPT-4 queries. $25 gets us 10_000.

Let's low ball average US developer salaries at a cool $100_000/yr. 50 40 hour weeks in a year makes 2_000 working hours makes $50 per hour. So with our very generous margins all working against us, a US developer would have to be making 20_000 GPT-4 queries an hour, or a little over 5 per second, in order to end up costing in electricity what he is making salary-wise.

I have no real point to this story except that electricity is much cheaper than most people have a useful frame of reference for. My mom used to complain about teenage me not running the dishwasher at full load until I worked out that the electricity and water together costed about 50¢ a run and offered her a clean $20 to offset my next 400 only three-quarters full runs.

Your bonus programming tip: Many programming languages let you legally use underscores to space large numbers! Try "million = 1_000_000" next time you fire up Python.

replies(1): >>willsm+Bc
2. willsm+Bc[view] [source] 2023-11-08 22:28:13
>>hiAndr+(OP)
I actually would have guessed a full load dishwasher would cost less than that, maybe 15-20 cents.
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