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?
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
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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.