GPTFootprint: Increasing Consumer Awareness of the Environmental Impacts of LLMs

TL;DR

This paper introduces GPTFootprint, a browser extension designed to raise consumer awareness of the environmental impacts of LLMs and promote sustainable usage through visualizations and prompts.

Contribution

It presents a novel tool for end-user awareness of AI environmental costs and evaluates its effectiveness through a week-long user study.

Findings

Increases user awareness of environmental impact

Limited success in reducing ChatGPT usage

Provides insights into awareness-based behavior change

Abstract

With the growth of AI, researchers are studying how to mitigate its environmental impact, primarily by proposing policy changes and increasing awareness among developers. However, research on AI end users is limited. Therefore, we introduce GPTFootprint, a browser extension that aims to increase consumer awareness of the significant water and energy consumption of LLMs, and reduce unnecessary LLM usage. GPTFootprint displays a dynamically updating visualization of the resources individual users consume through their ChatGPT queries. After a user reaches a set query limit, a popup prompts them to take a break from ChatGPT. In a week-long user study, we found that GPTFootprint increases people's awareness of environmental impact, but has limited success in decreasing ChatGPT usage. This research demonstrates the potential for individual-level interventions to contribute to the broader goal of sustainable AI usage, and provides insights into the effectiveness of awareness-based behavior modification strategies in the context of LLMs.