Prompt Footprint

Inspiration

We wanted to make a tool that helped quantify the environmental impacts of AI because oftentimes we saw news about the rise of AI data centers, but lacked the proper knowledge on the specifics. Sahil's research paper was built on this idea, so we wanted to bring it to life with a fully scoped-out Chrome extension built from scratch during this hackathon.

What it does

PromptFootprint tracks token usage in your conversations with ChatGPT and then uses publicly available data on ChatGPT's GPT 4.0 model's energy and water usage, as well as carbon dioxide emissions, to calculate the user's environmental impact. For more detailed statistics, the user can navigate to the full stats website from the extension pop-up to view visualized data, including weekly graphs, past sessions, and data animations, to help the user fully understand their impact.

How we built it

We built it using languages such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, as well as deployment tools such as Vercel for hosting, Railway for our backend, and Claude to help us along the way.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge we ran into was figuring out how to create a Chrome extension. There were unique aspects that were necessary, such as pop-ups, modal overlays, etc., that were new to us. Another challenge was making sure we were satisfied with the UI and figuring out how to deploy our extension.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of how quickly we managed to create our product and of the work that went into it. Likewise, we are proud of the design aspect of our project, especially the integration of 3D animations and the creation of a UI that matches our sustainability theme.

What we learned

We learned more about how to create Chrome extensions; the aspects of project creation, such as stakeholder views, project management, and storytelling; and how to manage collaboration to complete a project in such a short span of time.

What's next for Prompt Footprint

We plan to expand to support other AI models like Claude, Gemini, Copilot, etc., so it is not limited to just ChatGPT users. Furthermore, we can look for organizations to partner up with, such as schools or AI Literacy programs, so that more people are aware of the environmental impacts of AI.

Built With

• css
• html
• javascript
• postgressql
• railway
• vercel