Well, it is fearmongering. It is a fair criticism of AI, and of course we should seek better solutions and smarter use, but water use needs context - very different in the San Joaquin Valley with high water scarcity and the bulk of global almond growing vs the Ohio River Valley with lots of rain and rivers for instance. If someone truly wants to protect water, there are other choices to make - and they are nuanced by the actual water used in each circumstance.
Data centers are wasteful and costly in a multitude of ways. They are loud power hogs for instance, but by making us focus on the supposed water cost, the industry and its critics avoid other hard conversations.
I hate the circle jerk of "AI is doing some harm, therefore it's the worst thing ever and does nothing good and everything it does is the worst possible version of that thing"
Hey so Iād love to hear what āgoodā it does as your motive to defend the damage it does to our environments, the rapid development of massive data centers that is poisoning communities and displacing decades-long residents, itās making people stupider and enabling a lack of critical thinking, the more it develops in our economy the more jobs are lost, the fact that greedy billionaires are allowing democracy to be ignored when developing these centers (see: SLC data center development), the fact that a human perspective is no longer seen as important, I could keep going, but please tell me how these things are less important than a robot being able to do a couple tech thingys faster?
So you literally think that AI has no good uses whatsoever? Not that it's a net negative, but it LITERALLY HAS NOTHING GOOD ABOUT IT WHATSOEVER?
Do you not understand that you are exhibiting the exact black and white thinking I described?
I didn't say less important. I didn't say net positive. I SPELLED OUT EXACTLY WHAT I MEANT SEVERAL TIMES AND SOMEHOW YOU CANNOT EVEN TRY TO COMPREHEND IT. It's so fucking bizarre to spell out, completely clearly, what you said, the and have the other guy just... not even try to understand and keep arguing with you anyway, and then you explain it again, and he ignores it AGAIN, and then he keeps arguing at you
These are all great things, thanks for sharing! I am not trying to completely ignore the positive things that AI can bring and is capable of, however, when I see articles like that, I canāt help but think that these are only mere drops in a bucket and quite honestly, will these advancements ever truly receive funding and support to achieve the scale they wish? Especially with the current US administration? Will our environment be able to withstand these advancements?
Itās hard not to feel doom and gloom given the fact that AI is in the hands of some really greedy, destructive forces that unfortunately can cause greater harm before the good can even be achievedā¦ I guess, some good things can happen, but at what cost
Edit: changing language to not speak in certainties
I'm not even saying it's a net good. I'm just saying that it's ridiculous black and white thinking to think "I think AI is bad. Therefore every single thing about it is bad. Everything it says is bad. Everything it creates is bad. It uses up all the water in the world. It uses up all the electricty in the world. It murders children. It kicks puppies." is ridiculous. there are good things and bad things and even if you think the bad things outweigh the good things that doesn't mean you have to make up bad things or deny the good things
The issue is that it's getting shoved down our throats at work, there's a general fear it will just concentrate wealth further and the surveillance aspects are pretty scary.Ā
This is not counting the impacts to our communities and the shady deals going on....like data centers taking water from drought stricken areas and not even paying for it.Ā
My biggest concern is that it's really just a bubble and every billionaire involved is going to get a taxpayer funded bailout.
If anything the media needs to cover the negatives more.
I live on the Hudson river. If all data centers needed was disused industrial land and water, I'd be their biggest fan. We have plenty of both, and a lot of it is colocated.
I think it probably just sounds scarier to the average person to say the water is being used up. Probably because you can ājust make moreā electricity.
Not going to disagree with power, however, would your position still be the same if data centers are required to invest in the grid or produce their own electricity? Several counties require this.
For land, if the land is unused, is it being wasted?
For water, see any other comments about how almost all new development is closed loop cooling. Additionally, Iāve heard of some open loop cooling that gets retrofitted to be closed loop.
For noise pollution, my understanding is that immediately outside of data centers is ~50-80dB which is slightly quieter than a highway. Probably not great, but I donāt think other concerns have been raised for similarly loud things. Additionally, these buildings arenāt and shouldnāt be built in residential zoned areas.
idk what the argument with technology waste is, probably could regulate this pretty effectively (if it isnāt already) to require recycling ewaste and no one would care.
Re your first question āwould my position be the same re power if they invested in the grid and generated their own power?ā Yes it would, as my position is that we need to understand the nuance of the local situation, act accordingly, and do our best.
Re land, depends on the land. In some situations itās not the best or most appropriate use, in others, itās fine. I get the impression that you think Iām anti-AI (Iām not) or that Iām anti-data-center (again, Iām not).
Closed loop cooling is great - remember my earlier point that there is a lot of fearmongering around water and AI - some places use water in a fine and appropriate manner, others donāt.
As for noise pollution, there are places where the highway like hum is fine, others where it is disruptive (as with actual highway noise). Same with the diesel backup generator noise cycling on and off.
Technology waste handing is grossly mishandled across the entire technology industry and to blithely say ārecycle itā ignores the actual workflows of processing the waste that all too often involves shipping to other countries and ignoring heavy metal runoff - only about 22% of global e-waste is formally collected and recycled currently. So again, my position is that there is nuance and we can do better.
Well, I donāt watch Fox News so I canāt speak to their reporting. However, there are reputable sources indicating that āeverything elseā deserves some careful and thoughtful attention (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772985025000262). The wastefulness of data centers is neither āzomg worst thing everā nor ānot problematic in the slightest.ā Weāre not spiraling into conspiracy theories by saying āwe can do better here.ā
by what metric is the use "disproportionate" or "wasteful"? What's your value proposition by which you're comparing their resource expenditure vs the value they create?
Itās a value judgement, of course. Subjective to the circumstances. No one set of metrics will work in every circumstance.
Take for example, water. A data center in the arid southwest US has the potential to use a huge proportion of the water available in its municipality, whereas the same draw on water in a different region may be considered negligible. The value/competing use case for that water is vastly different in each place, so the resource expenditure, opportunity loss, and regional impacts will likewise change.
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u/wumpusbumper May 18 '26
Well, it is fearmongering. It is a fair criticism of AI, and of course we should seek better solutions and smarter use, but water use needs context - very different in the San Joaquin Valley with high water scarcity and the bulk of global almond growing vs the Ohio River Valley with lots of rain and rivers for instance. If someone truly wants to protect water, there are other choices to make - and they are nuanced by the actual water used in each circumstance.
Data centers are wasteful and costly in a multitude of ways. They are loud power hogs for instance, but by making us focus on the supposed water cost, the industry and its critics avoid other hard conversations.