Report Pegs Cost of AI at Nearly $300K Per Minute

• By David Ramel
• 08/06/24

A new report from cloud-based data/BI specialist Domo provides a staggering estimate of the minute-by-minute impact of today's generative AI boom.

In the time it takes you to read the opening sentences of this article, for instance, nearly $300,000 will have been spent on AI worldwide.

Domo executive Ben Schein said the report provides a glimpse into just how much data AI tools are generating today. "When ChatGPT brought LLMs into the spotlight, it opened everyone's eyes to just how impactful AI can be," he said in a July 23 news release. "We've seen a flood of AI applications emerge as a result. Domo has reported on data volumes for over a decade and the way AI has impacted data creation rivals that of the early days of social media platforms."

Per Domo's report, this is the impact of AI every minute:

• Users spend a combined $293,000 on AI.
• 19,028 images are created using text-to-image AI models.
• ChatGPT receives 6,944 prompts.
• A total of 7,431 minutes of video are generated by AI.
• ChatGPT supercomputers consume 185 gallons of water to cool themselves.
• Dall-E 2 creates 1,389 images.
• 35 new cars with hands-free automation features are sold.
• Employees using ChatGPT save a combined 467,000 hours of work.
• A deepfake is created.
• Turnitin flags 52 college papers for plagiarism.

The report underscores the immense price of AI computation and other associated work.

"Nothing is free, especially when it comes to technology, where $293K is spent on AI every minute," Domo said. "In addition to the monetary expenses, up to 185 gallons of water are used to cool down the heat generated from ChatGPT supercomputer's computational power."

Other highlights of the report as presented by the company include:

• Automation Domination: Moving beyond conversational use cases, users are increasingly using LLMs to design, drive and more. Every minute, Dall-E 2 generates 1,389 images and 19,028 are created by other text-to-image platforms, while 7,431 minutes of AI-generated video are created. Worldwide today, 35 new cars with hands-free automation are sold each minute.
• Pros and Cons of AI: While AI is incredibly beneficial for many scenarios, other applications are not so noble. Every minute, employees save 467,882 hours of work using ChatGPT. However, some are taking advantage of its writing capabilities for schoolwork, with 52 college papers flagged for AI plagiarism on Turnitin every minute.

An infographic of the findings is available on the Domo site.