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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

#401

Post by matheusmoreira »

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…

> The cities' water usage is to keep people alive with basically mandatory things, like hygiene, and drinking.

Nothing but costs! All of those people have been replaced by AI. What's the point of keeping all those economically useless people alive?

This is our future if we don't achieve the fabled post-scarcity society soon.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#402

Post by gensym »

casefields wrote: post #367
anubistheta wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is an easy concrete way to stir up reactionary sentiment. The real issues are debatable but complex. But the common folk can all visualize a gallon of water.

Not only that they are trying the same playbook as what was done to nuclear. A new technology comes and activists try to instill fear so as to murder the tech in its baby crib.

What a strange sentiment.

The world would be better without nuclear technology! Yes, it can be used to generate electricity in a much cleaner way than other technologies, but its potential to kill so many people has shaped geopolitics for generations. If we could get the energy without the destruction, that would be ideal, of course. But there's an unacceptable chance that nuclear weapons will kill everyone I care about.

I think AI is actually similar. It's really useful for all sorts of stuff - I'm running multiple agents writing code as we speak. But it's also going to make the world much more dangerous by giving people the ability to kill and spy like never before.

There are better arguments than the water thing.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#403

Post by Levitz »

pigeons wrote: post #396
Levitz wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are insinuating that a fight against tech giants is the preferable option regarding pollution and I'm unserious??

The effects of the tech giants encroachment of society and the stakes and gravity of the situation is so serious that some people think its important not to allow attempts to frame the struggle as Sisyphean to succeed.

>The effects of the tech giants encroachment of society and the stakes and gravity of the situation is so serious

Regarding pollution??? Completely preposterous.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#404

Post by AnthonyMouse »

cma wrote: post #395
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bad argument. There are gasoline trucks with a GVWR of ~20,000 pounds and diesel cars that weigh less than a Honda Accord. If you actually wanted to do that then you'd instead do something like tax based on axle weight and miles traveled, e.g. by reading the odometer during inspections. The better argument is that diesel is worse for air quality and then it's a pigouvian tax in proportion to how much you bur…

> diesel cars that weigh less than a Honda Accord. It is taxed less than gas in lots of Europe where that is more common. You also need to factor in mpg vs gas, where it is higher, so more road-wear pCO2 was part of the debate in Europe, even though it is longer carbon chain so worse co2 ratio per calorie, the engines are more efficient. Diesel is worse for local air, better for long term co2. There are a mixture of…

> It is taxed less than gas in lots of Europe where that is more common.

But then it's even worse at recovering the cost of road maintenance from heavy trucks.

> You also need to factor in mpg vs gas, where it is higher

Passat TDI (diesel), ~3500 pounds, ~45MPG. Toyota Camry Hybrid (gas), ~3500 pounds, ~50MPG.

In theory diesel hybrids would be even more efficient but diesel engines and hybrid transmissions both add up-front cost and further efficiency improvements have diminishing returns because reducing a $100 fuel cost by 30% isn't as much money as reducing a $70 fuel cost by 30%.

> There are a mixture of factors and lobbying behind the differencs, road wear is one.

Road wear is the irrelevant one in terms of fuel. Because of the fourth power law, essentially all road wear is from full-size buses and semi trucks. The contribution from passenger cars and even the likes of diesel pickup trucks rounds to zero. Meanwhile the largest vehicles use a minority of the fuel because there are several times more passenger cars than semi trucks.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#405

Post by eesmith »

Straw wrote: post #394
eesmith wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 101 level solution means that Native Americans who were granted water rights by the Spanish, and guaranteed those rights by US treaties, would have to outbid urban users in order to grow subsistence crops. The heavy users have more influence over the laws which govern the infrastructure, as the history of water rights in the West clearly shows. We see it now when secretive organizations negotiate with water compa…

These all seem fine in a normal market? If the Native Americans have water rights, they can also sell them. They can choose to use it inefficiently on subsistence farming, or they could sell at the going rate. A normal market itself doesn't imply any particular allocation of water rights, just that they should be as fungible and transferable as possible. Why are the laws that govern the infrastructure particularly im…

> If the Native Americans have water rights, they can also sell them.

You've just described the standard practice for taking over Native American lands by economic coercion instead of direct force. Take away land and water using market forces, and a culture based on land and water shatters.

That's precisely why the Native Americans protected their rights by treaty, not market forces.

Econ 101 was created to justify British colonial expansionism. Econ 101 justifies indentured servitude. Econ 101 justifies vote selling. Econ 101 justifies rule by the rich.

We've collectively decided that some part of life are off-limits to Econ 101.

Water is not simply a commodity. Water is life. Water is culture.

> How does this create an issue?

Water rights in the West are at least a Econ 400 level course, if not graduate school.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#406

Post by jrflo »

XorNot wrote: post #332
jrflo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pretty easy 'optional' comparison would be golf course watering. I saw a much more detailed write up on this that I can't find now, but a quick google shows 500 billion gallons a year for US golf courses and 180 billion gallons a year for all data centers, not just AI data centers.

The problem with these numbers though is water isn't really lost in those processes and has another dynamic: you can't really bank it. There's tons of ecosystems where the biggest problem is we have to ensure a certain amount of water goes through them to keep them alive. And so in that context all water usage is not equal: watering a golf course where run off goes back to local estuaries is different to evaporative…

agreed, you could also argue that runoff from golf courses needs to be processed which costs energy, versus total evap cooling where the water immediately re enters the water cycle in the form of vapor. It's not an easy comparison, but it does put it in context.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#407

Post by da_chicken »

kazinator wrote: post #282
da_chicken wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But at least that alfalfa gobbles up CO2 from the air.

Animals eat it and turn it into methane, which is arguably worse than CO2.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#408

Post by xnx »

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.

Middle east countries excel at selling irreplaceable liquids they pump out of the ground for free.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#409

Post by Brendinooo »

jedimastert wrote: post #338
Brendinooo wrote: post #13

Usually when people compare data center water usage to golf course water usage I feel a lot better about the whole thing.

Would it surprise you to find out that there are many people who are opposed to golf courses for the same reasons?

It would not!

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#410

Post by cybercatgurrl »

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!

and that hamburger could have fed even more in the form of plant based food! what an inefficient use of resources!
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