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AI uses less water than the public thinks

californiawaterblog.com

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Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#191

Post by quadrifoliate »

pj_mukh wrote: post #152
parsimo2010 wrote: post #69

Comparing water usage of AI to agriculture and cities is a little misleading. The cities' water usage is to keep people alive with basically mandatory things, like hygiene, and drinking. Agricultural water usage is required because we have to eat to live. Don't compare something optional to something mandatory. Instead, compare AI water usage to that of optional things in a city, such as car washes and water parks. O…

This is an extremely frustrating angle to take because what you're implying is that anytime anyone comes up with any system that takes water they should go in front of a panel of experts (seniors) who get to decide whether their water usage is for an "approvable" purpose. Now I don't like water going to Golf courses either but to me even the intermediate solution is to price water accurately. Barring that, long term…

> anytime anyone comes up with any system that takes water they should go in front of a panel of experts (seniors) who get to decide whether their water usage is for an "approvable" purpose.

This is absolutely how things work, the water for farming and industry is cheap by design (at least in the US) so that people will have relatively cheap food and consumer goods.

Now you can absolutely try to go change that to a strictly capitalist "One gallon of water is 1 cent, whatever the usage", but you'll have a hard time finding a political group in this country that stands behind such a principal. Even the most conservative groups typically back farming subsidies.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#192

Post by fuzzy_biscuit »

Whether it is or isn't happens to be beside the point. It's water being removed from the system en masse for a non-essential function, i.e. other than sustaining life, while driving up the cost of other utilities.

If we're trying to deny the usage "tier," I'd argue we're being intentionally obtuse at worst and foolish at best.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#193

Post by Ethee »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #174
Petersipoi wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have to eat to live Oh, so that's why we're growing alfalfa in the middle of deserts, flooding the fields with excess water so we can keep water rights, and then shipping the alfalfa to China. It's so we can eat!

If we're shipping the alfalfa to China, I assume that means it's supporting some Chinese person's food source, whether they are directly eating the alfalfa, or some animal is eating it that later becomes food. If someone is flooding a field unproductively just to use up their quota of water, that is a bad thing that should be addressed. But even if you excluded that unproductive usage and compared AI water use to leg…

Pointing to agriculture as a necessity while also wanting water usage to be "productive" is a little contradictory here. We grow things because there is a demand for those products in similar way that there is a demand for datacenters, the nutrition aspect is secondary and has been for a long time now. Would you say that almond growing is a productive use of our water? How about bananas, or beef, or avocados? All of these products use an abnormally large amount of water compared to other agricultural endeavors and if we compare that to data center water usage data center's are a drop in the bucket. We don't 'need' all of products we produce through agriculture to survive anymore, we grow them because we like them.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#194

Post by darth_aardvark »

bluGill wrote: post #109
teamonkey wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s understandable that people blame AI for economic issues when so may CEOs are publicly stating that “increased efficiencies due to AI” is the reason for laying off staff.

They blamed the latest fad for layoffs in the last one as well. Every company and project I know of has a long list of things they want to do that they believe would be good for customers - but they cannot afford the people needed, and the risk is too high to borrow. That is if AI was really increasing efficiency in a good economy they would be keeping everyone and getting more work done with them. Of course in reali…

> " latest fad for layoffs"

What are you referring to here? The latest fad before AI was crypto, or maybe "the metaverse" and I don't think anyone credited those for layoffs. Before that, the latest large round of layoffs was during what, 2008? And the blame for that was correctly laid on the very real economic collapse occurring.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#196

Post by rsoto2 »

legitster wrote: post #70

> Using the prompt, “How much water is likely to evaporate from data centers in California per year, assuming they are all using mostly evaporative cooling?” several free AI websites provided ranges of estimates, below. These AI also can provide ranges and sources for calculation assumptions. Data centers with closed loop cooling systems are absolutely built all of the time. Total evaporative cooling has the advantag…

Also just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's not depleting resources and making life worse for a community somewhere. People are constantly trying to build pipelines to the west to deplete the great lakes. There is a societal and ecological limit and these AI companies are not worth it.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#197

Post by somewhatgoated »

da_chicken wrote: post #170
legitster wrote: post #70

> Using the prompt, “How much water is likely to evaporate from data centers in California per year, assuming they are all using mostly evaporative cooling?” several free AI websites provided ranges of estimates, below. These AI also can provide ranges and sources for calculation assumptions. Data centers with closed loop cooling systems are absolutely built all of the time. Total evaporative cooling has the advantag…

Yeah, there are alfalfa fields in central Arizona . Alfalfa basically turns water and sunlight into cellulose about as quickly as plants can. Worse, the owners of those fields are often foreign companies. That means they use tremendous amounts of water in one of the driest regions on earth, in the middle of a multiple decade drought, and the wealth these farms generate disappears overseas.

How is it legal? Shouldn’t water be the most regulated (as in protected) substance of all?

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#198

Post by throwaway_95283 »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #69

Comparing water usage of AI to agriculture and cities is a little misleading. The cities' water usage is to keep people alive with basically mandatory things, like hygiene, and drinking. Agricultural water usage is required because we have to eat to live. Don't compare something optional to something mandatory. Instead, compare AI water usage to that of optional things in a city, such as car washes and water parks. O…

There's not really any NEED to grow almonds. Most agriculture in California is not required to sustain life in CA. However, without AI people wouldn't have jobs that could afford CA rents, so AI is required so people can live. Lets get rid of unnecessary uses like agriculture, unless farmers can justify that the usage is actually required to sustain life.

If you look at water distribution you'll find that its unevenly distributed so farmers should pay a water tax and distribute that water to the less water fortunate. CA has an extremely high water GINI with a few farmers consuming far more than their fair share.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#199

Post by sandworm101 »

lxgr wrote: post #128
Petersipoi wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have to eat to live Oh, so that's why we're growing alfalfa in the middle of deserts, flooding the fields with excess water so we can keep water rights, and then shipping the alfalfa to China. It's so we can eat!

Yes, and now please cut the non-essential philosophical discussion, the server hosting this site doesn't run on thought experiments alone either. This comment could have been someone's hamburger!

HN could run on a cellphone with a good connection. The YouTube video I am watching in another window probably burns more electrons than this entire forum.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#200

Post by Matticus_Rex »

notJim wrote: post #124
parsimo2010 wrote: post #69

Comparing water usage of AI to agriculture and cities is a little misleading. The cities' water usage is to keep people alive with basically mandatory things, like hygiene, and drinking. Agricultural water usage is required because we have to eat to live. Don't compare something optional to something mandatory. Instead, compare AI water usage to that of optional things in a city, such as car washes and water parks. O…

A lot of agricultural water usage (more water than AI) is for growing corn to turn into ethanol so we can add it to gasoline. It's not a small amount either, 40% of all corn in the US is used for this purpose.

We use about two orders of magnitude more water (each!) on corn and alfalfa than on data centers as of 2023, and while we're ramping data centers up fast, it'll still be an order of magnitude at the 2030 data center estimates (which may heavily overestimate, now that there's so much opposition popping up).
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