A chatbot entirely powered by humans, not artificial intelligence? This Chilean community shows why
About 50 residents of a community outside Chile’s capital spent Saturday trying their best to power an entirely human-operated chatbot that could answer questions and make silly pictures on command, in a message to highlight the environmental toll of artificial intelligence data centers in the region.Organizers say the 12-hour project fielded more than 25,000 requests from around the world.Asking the Quili.AI website to generate an image of a “sloth playing in the snow” didn't instantly produce an output, as ChatGPT or Google's Gemini would.Instead, someone responded in Spanish to wait a few moments and reminded the user that a human was responding.Then came a drawing about 10 minutes later: a penciled sketch of a cute and cartoonish sloth in a pile of snowballs, with its claws clutching one and about to throw it.“The goal is to highlight the hidden water footprint behind AI prompting and encourage more responsible use,” said a statement from organizer Lorena Antiman of the environmental group Corporación NGEN.The answers came from a rotating crew of volunteers working on laptops in a community center in Quilicura, a municipality at the urban edge of Santiago that has become a data center hub.
Asked by an Associated Press reporter for the identity of who made the sloth drawing, the website responded that it was a local youth who's helping with illustrations.The website responded quickly to questions that drew on residents' cultural knowledge, like how to make Chilean sopaipillas, a fried pastry.When they didn't know the answer, they walked around the room to see if someone else did.
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"Wh...