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AI uses less water than the public thinks
21–30 of 425 posts
Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks
#22This is an AI generated article, with AI generated images, claiming that AI isn't a resource problem.
Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks
#23I often get side tracked into commenting on regular social media like Instagram and I'm somehow surprised over and over how poor critical thinking skills in the greater population. The zeitgeist of US politics is "this doesn't directly benefit me so this must be bad". According to the Instagram demographic, ALL industrial uses of water and electricity are bad because they "compete" with household use. The massive Agricultural industrial complex is actually OK because I like meat, almonds, etc. AI is bad because it doesn't make my job easier.
Even among the more "globally conscious", there's a severe misunderstanding of how much industry, factories, and overall "consumption" it takes to feed the Western - especially American - way of life. If running data centers can actually sustain the next 10-15 years of ~2% GDP growth, that's literally an economic miracle. An industry that takes in water & electricity yet produces no long term pollutants is literally the closest you can get to money growing on trees.
What other industry in history of the US's economic development has been this clean? I can't think of any. I'm surprised more data centers are not just built in Mexico or other countries that would support rather than oppose/block their development.
Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks
#24A lot of confusion around AI water usage might stem from whether it's an open-loop or a closed-loop cooling system. e.g. an open-loop system which disposes of waste heat through evaporation is naturally going to draw a lot more water than a closed-loop system which recycles the water. Open-loop is likely cheaper to build, and importantly, it _does_ use up a lot of water that could otherwise be going to a municipality…
A lot o the confusion around data centers is that these companies purposely hide this information from the public. We already know how damaging normal data centers are:
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2022/12/the-dalles...
Citizens had to sue their town to force them to give up water usage, something Google was adamant about hiding from the public.
When there is no accountability, trust plummets. There is no reason to trust anything from these corpos or their pro-corpo rags.
Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks
#25Greater than $0 in cost of living increases for people living near these things is too much.
Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks
#26Usually when people compare data center water usage to golf course water usage I feel a lot better about the whole thing.
I’d recommend you read the following report: Proximity to Golf Courses and Risk of Parkinson Disease
Individuals living within water service areas with a golf course had nearly double the odds of PD compared with individuals in water service areas without golf courses…
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks
#27The author uses a measurement I'm not familiar with so I used AI to translate it. >Using the broader initial AI water use estimate of 32,000 acre-ft/year to 290,000 acre-ft/year Note : 1 acre-foot is approximately equal to 325,851 gallons. AI : That estimate converts to approximately 10.4 billion to 94.5 billion gallons per year. Ya 10 billion gallons of water (low estimate) is totally nothing. Thx for this informati…
I’m actually surprised it’s so low. That’s about 7 seconds of the Mississippi River at its exit per day. Maybe a week or two of alfalfa farming per year, or even less?
You could imagine running way more water, but I guess these racks are extremely dense.
Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks
#28The bigger concern is more around the pollution of the gas turbines. Populations around the DC are going to see higher rates of Asthma, Respiratory diseases, Heart problems, and certain cancers.
Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks
#29Look over here! Not over there at grid infrastructure and generating capacity, or noise and pollution from on-site generators.
The scale of electricity use in data centers is much more likely to cause disruption and the shifting of costs onto residential customers to pay for a new infrastructure and generating capacity.
Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks
#30Usually when people compare data center water usage to golf course water usage I feel a lot better about the whole thing.
I’d recommend you read the following report: Proximity to Golf Courses and Risk of Parkinson Disease Individuals living within water service areas with a golf course had nearly double the odds of PD compared with individuals in water service areas without golf courses… https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
Did you read the paper carefully? It's about pesticide use. (It's not especially plausible as epidemiological studies go, though I'm unsurprised if a better study finds a firmer correlation between pesticides and PD.)