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Comment by throw20251220 | Hacker News Reader

throw20251220

Yes, it does look like you didn’t understand. I will help you. Start here: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-ecological-cost-of-ai-...

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Where does this "AI uses water" meme come from? It's being shared with increasing hysteria, but data centres don't burn water, or whatever the meme says. They use electricity and cooling systems.

It's mostly not a real issue. I think it's holding firm because it's novel - saying "data centers use a lot of electricity" isn't a new message, so it doesn't resonate with people. "Did you know they're using millions of liters of water too!" is a more interesting message.

People are also very bad at evaluating if millions of liters of water is a lot or not.

My favourite exploration of this issue is from Hank Green: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc - this post by Andy Masley is useful too: https://andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake

At least perform a tiny bit of research before you parrot VC talking points on a VC controlled message board. Yes data centers use a shit ton of water daily https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-co...

I don't care about the supposed ecological consequences of AI. If we need more water, we build more desalination plants. If we need more electricity, we build more nuclear reactors.

This is purely a technological problem and not a moral one.

There were people before “ai” in other industries who were like “I don’t care about ecological consequences of my actions”. We as society have turned them into law-abiding citizens. You will be there too. Don’t worry. Time will come. You will be regulated. Same as cryptocurrencies, chemical, oil and gas, …

If you were capable of time travel and you could go to the past and convince world government of the evil oil and gas industries, and that their expansion should be prevented, would you have done it? Would you have prevented the technological and sociatal advances that came from oil and gas to avoid their ecological consequences?

If you answer yes, I don't think we can agree on anything. If you answer no, I think you are a hypocrite.

Oil and gas is regulated. Took some time but we have gotten there.

In which sense is it regulated? Are they regulated in any way that matters for this discussion? Have their ecological consequences been avoided by regulation? The oil and gas industries continue to be the biggest culprits of climate change, and that cannot be changed by law.

If data centers were "regulated" would that make you happy? Even if those data centers continued to use the same amount of electricity and the same amount of water?

Clean water is a public good, it is required for basic human survival. It is needed to grow crops to feed people. Both of these uses depend on fairly cheap water, in many many places the supply of sufficiently cheap water is already constrained. This is causing a shortage for both basic human needs, and agriculture.

Who will pay for the desalination plant construction? Who will pay for the operation?

If the AI companies are ready to pay the full marginal cost of this "new water", and not free-load on the already insufficient supply needed for more important uses, then fine. But I very much doubt that is what will happen.

The data center companies frequently pay for upgrades to the local water systems.

https://www.hermiston.gov/publicworks/page/hermiston-water-s... - "AWS is covering all construction costs associated with the water service agreement"

https://www.thedalles.org/news_detail_T4_R180.php - "The fees paid by Google have funded essential upgrades to our water systems, ensuring reliable service and addressing the City's growing needs. Additionally, Google continues to pay for its water use and contributes to infrastructure projects that exceed the requirements of its facilities."

https://commerce.idaho.gov/press-releases/meta-announces-kun... - "As part of the company’s commitment to Kuna, Meta is investing approximately $50 million in a new water and sewer system for the city. Infrastructure will be constructed by Meta and dedicated to the City of Kuna to own and operate."

For desalination, the important part is paying the ongoing cost. The opex is much higher, and it's not fair to just average that into the supply for everyone to pay.

Are any data centers using desalinated water? I thought that was a shockingly expensive and hence very rare process.

(I asked ChatGPT and it said that some of the Gulf state data centers do.)

They do use treated (aka drinking) water, but that's a relatively inexpensive process which should be easily covered by the extra cash they shovel into their water systems on an annual basis.

Andy wrote a section about that here: https://andymasley.substack.com/i/175834975/how-big-of-a-dea...

Read the comment I replied to, they proposed that since desalination is possible, there can be no meaningful shortage of water.

And yes, many places have plenty of water. After some Capex improvements to the local system, a datacenter is often net-helpful, as they spread the fixed cost of the water system cost out over more gallons delivered.

But many places don't have lots of water to spare.

Sorry, I'm not impressed much. First of all, their presence has a huge impact on the existing infrastructure, and let's face it, these corporations are not doing improvements out of their goodness of their hearts and because they care about the people that live in those areas. They do it because, pragmatically, they need those upgrades to function in a longer run. Secondly, it is indicative of the state of the current infrastructure and the fact that cityhalls don't have money to improve the infrastructure just for the sake of the locals. I've seen a documentary with a family affected by a datacentre built by meta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3_YYf0ty4s

I totally identify with Rob Pyke's reaction, because that's how I feel about generative AI every day, especially when more and more articles are published about the negative impact generative AI has on the normal people and especially kids who are very vulnerable to manipulation detrimental to their very own existence. The tech bros don't give a rats tail about us. You can reason and analyse all you want about who does what and whose fault is it, but at the end of the day it would not have happened if this technology didn't exist or it was not pushed so aggressively by all the big corporations. Personally, I hope the bubble will burst and generative AI will crawl back into the hellhole where it came from.

That documentary is about the Georgia data center where construction errors damaged local water supplies - it's bad, but it's not evidence that continued operation of data centers is harmful to local water.

There was no indication that things will be somehow repaired. The video stated that the data center consumes 10% of the whole county water need. Here is another video for you: https://youtu.be/DGjj7wDYaiI . Locals are experiencing higher rates of electricity, almost double because of the data centres. And this is ongoing. I don't think these power companies will rollback rates any time soon.

I was trying to remember where I'd heard of "More Perfect Union" and then I realized they were the outfit Andy Masley specifically called out for misleading people on AI data center use a few months ago: https://andymasley.substack.com/p/more-perfect-union-is-dece...

Do you find his writing there unconvincing?

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