It might seem like magic. Type a request into ChatGPT, click a button and — presto! — here’s a five-paragraph analysis of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and, as an added bonus, it’s written in iambic pentameter. Or tell DALL-E about the chimeric animal from your dream, and out comes an image of a gecko-wolf-starfish hybrid. If you’re feeling down, call up the digital “ghost” of your deceased grandmother and receive some comfort (SN: 6/15/24, p. 10).
Despite how it may appear, none of this materializes out of thin air. Every interaction with a chatbot or other generative AI system funnels through wires and cables to a data center — a warehouse
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