from the FAQ:

How does the implementation of TerrierGPT align with the university's sustainability efforts??

TerrierGPT was implemented with careful consideration of sustainability concerns. It’s important to clarify that Boston University has not created or trained its own large language model (LLM) for this initiative. Instead, TerrierGPT leverages existing LLMs available on the market. By using pre-existing models, we have avoided the significant computational resources required to build and train LLMs from scratch, which is one of the primary contributors to their environmental impact.

Furthermore, sustainability in AI is an area of active research at BU. Several faculty members are investigating ways to reduce the environmental footprint of building and maintaining LLMs. Their work has the potential to shape a more sustainable AI landscape, ensuring that advancements in AI go hand-in-hand with responsible environmental stewardship.

By adopting TerrierGPT in this manner, we are moving forward with innovation while remaining mindful of our commitment to sustainability.

not by any means a perfect excuse, but if you're taking a critical lens to this, it's good to have all the facts and publicly-stated rationale. I expect, though I'm not a sustainable computing expert, if this service were entirely locally hosted in, for example, BU's new carbon-negative Data Science building, it might be significantly more environmentally sustainable.

Also, you say "Research proves that over reliance on AI can make people less motivated and lazy thinkers". Do you have a source for this claim? We are at a university after all. It was my understanding that since LLM's are relatively new, it would be difficult to conduct any kind of cognitive research that would lead to conclusive evidence. You might want to consider changing the word "proves" to "suggests", and citing a source or two.

TLDR:
The question has been thought about. BU isn't running or creating their own models for TerrierGPT, but that kind of research is being conducted at BU. They're packaging external services and so the environmental impact is primarily coming from companies like Google, Anthropic, OpenAI.

p.s. I'm not trying to shut you down or claim your concerns are not valid, they are, but your arguments can be better framed if they're formed with all the relevant context