[adamrezich]

The other day I was talking with two friends—one programmer, one musician, both of fairly conservative political persuasion—and the topic of “AI data centers” came up. I said something to the effect of, “y'know, all that talk about how they just use all up all the water from wherever they're built is total propaganda nonsense, right?” and both were genuinely taken aback by this statement. As far as they were concerned, “AI data centers” were something a Captain Planet villain would build, just absolute ecological disasters, inherently. I'm relatively neutral when it comes to this stuff but man, the propaganda against “AI data centers” really works!

[1970-01-01]

Your two friends are factually correct. You somehow misinterpret how much water they consume.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-water-usage

[yellowapple]

If every American skipped a single burger per year, that'd entirely offset the combined water use of all American datacenters.

Datacenters, in other words, do not consume all that much water in the grand scheme of things. There are many, many better targets if water conservation is a genuine concern.

[adamrezich]

The energy grid use seems far more worrisome than water use. Why would anyone build an AI data center in a specifically “water-stressed region”?

[1970-01-01]

A: Because they can get away with it.

[saratogacx]

You don't need to put in a lot of effort to convince people that creepy, deceitful, generally unlikable, rich folks are doing things you won't like and are lying to get away with it.