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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

#371

Post by thrance »

jlebar wrote: post #366
thrance wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gasoline is heavily regulated and subsidized. Leaving the oil market alone resulted in Standard Oil, and we obviously don't want that again.

I am not saying that there should be no regulations on monopolies. We are discussing a very specific market intervention, namely the proposal to > systematically [use] a pricing structure that charges disproportionately more for usage above high thresholds. This is what I'm arguing is a bad idea, by using gasoline as an example. If you want to argue that imposing this pricing structure systematically is good because…

Your claim was:

> Turns out markets are pretty good when you leave them alone. But when they're not left alone (as is the case with water today!!) you get some weird shit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#372

Post by taejavu »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #363
taejavu wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of cattle are raised in a pasture and eat grass, even those labeled “grain fed”. Grain fed just means they spend some time (e.g. 30 days) in a feed lot. I hadn’t heard about cows eating alfalfa though, where is that happening? Wouldn’t it be more valuable to sell it to people instead of using it as feed?

Grass takes lots of water to grow.

That water is free. It’s called rain.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#373

Post by deaux »

Levitz wrote: post #161
AmbroseBierce wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was massive controversy about that so I don't know how good counterexample it's that. Unless the argument is "we already waste a lot why would you care about wasting more??" Which is not a great argument.

It's not explicitly a great argument, but it's an excellent premise to set. Because this whole thing has absolutely nothing to do with pollution or water. It has to do with people hating AI and looking to portray it negatively. The proof is that if they actually cared, there's a million better places to put their efforts into. It is not an honest issue and it deserves no attention. The vast, vast majority of people t…

This is 100% true. Every person I know - and I know a lot of them because I'm one of them myself - who already seriously cared about the environment pre-AI, including making personal sacrifices for it, doesn't place outsized importance on AI's environmental impact compared to other sources. Every person who frequently brings up AI's environmental damage are those who honestly never really cared about the environment/climate, at most paying lip service to it for brownie points/to feel better but never took any actions that would inconvenience themselves.

Because we who actually care about this subject go through the effort of educating ourselves and tend to use our energy in ways that actually make a difference, that are effective. Because we care about making an impact, not about brownie points.

People are just embarrassed to admit they're scared they might lose their job. They shouldn't be but they are because they've attached their identity to their career and to the concept of it making them uniquely skilled and creative, in a way that a machine could never replace.

Please don't take this as saying they are replaceable by AI. Maybe it never will. That doesn't matter, what matters is that they're scared that it will, and they're too embarrassed to admit they're scared of it, so they point towards the environmental damage.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#374

Post by atoav »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #224
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.

Part of the issue is not systematically using a pricing structure that charges disproportionately more for usage above high thresholds. The 101-level "solution" is to just raise the price to account for demand. The problem with that is that it treats all usage the same, whether it's a residence's first gallon or an alfalfa field's last gallon. But the former is something we need to protect. It makes sense to price wa…

I think it makes sense to have a continuum of:

1. You're thirsty and need a sip of water? That should be free

2. You're an household and use water? That should cost progressively more the more you use if you use more than typically needed

3. Your business model requires you to evaporate every last drop of water in a desert region? That should be so prohibitively expensive that your business model does not work

This is basically just a low amount threshold and a exponential function. You just need to select the exponent.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#375

Post by eesmith »

Straw wrote: post #320
JoshTriplett wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issue is not systematically using a pricing structure that charges disproportionately more for usage above high thresholds. The 101-level "solution" is to just raise the price to account for demand. The problem with that is that it treats all usage the same, whether it's a residence's first gallon or an alfalfa field's last gallon. But the former is something we need to protect. It makes sense to price wa…

This causes major market distortions and worse outcomes than the econ 101 solution. The problem is that water isn't traded on a normal market at all. Lots of people have historical water rights and pay nearly nothing for their water use. There's byzantine regulation and many have the right to use for some purpose on their land but not to resell, so the market cannot allocate to more efficient use. If you just let the…

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 companies under NDA to get water for new data centers - something a smaller water user couldn't do.

The riparian doctrine of the East, with its high rainfall, don't work so well in the dry West, which is why it generally uses the prior appropriation doctrine. Water management was traditionally under a communal system. Some of these still exist as acequia associations, which include equity and fairness in their decisions, which doesn't follow the prior appropriation doctrine.

Econ 101 doesn't handle these issues.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#376

Post by dwb »

matthewfcarlson wrote: post #103
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…

In the article it lists a data point that beer production in Arizona used more water than the data centers in Arizona. People may vehemently disagree, but we absolutely do not need beer. Would I trade beer for AI? That's an easy choice, AI every time. If you just keep track of the water to keep a person alive and the bare minimum water required for agriculture (which isn't particularly efficient in most cases), it wo…

LLMs make my job easier on balance and I hardly drink beer any more, but I would choose beer over data centres every single time.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#377

Post by expedition32 »

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.

Those fields still provide more jobs for the locals than data centers.

People need to work and not everyone can be a tech bro keyboard warrior. Hell apparently the end game is to replace IT workers with AI!

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#379

Post by YetAnotherNick »

taejavu wrote: post #372
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grass takes lots of water to grow.

That water is free. It’s called rain.

So when there is no rain you let the cattle die? Feed on other people's land? By that logic even server's water can come from rain.

> Around 14 percent of the 3 670 km3 of freshwater withdrawn each year for the irrigation of crops and pasture is allocated to produce feed items for livestock

[1]: https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/a7f...

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#380

Post by hansmayer »

loeg wrote: post #359
hansmayer wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, wasn't yours? I mean you literally used "net jobs created" as an argument ?

That part was not discussing data center jobs; it was asking cdrnsf if they'd object to other industries bringing in jobs that just happened to be above median wage (which would increase the COL for existing residents).

Well then, why would you ask them that in this context? Just out of interest and out of the topic context?
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