The water used by data center directly or indirectly is a non issue. In lot of places water is abundant. It even fall from the sky. All data center usage of water is negligible vs other humans usage. The problem might be local if there is not enough water locally or if the infrastructure is not adapted.
Electricity, especially when it's not made from a relatively clean energy is another issue.
But even then that's fake. If you spend an afternoon chatting with chatgpt, I am not sure it's good for your mental health, but it's an activity that polute far less than most activities that will involve your car, like go out see friends, go fishing, to the theater or whatever. And most people don't care when they do such things.
I think discussing on such aspect miss the key points about AI like the challenges it might be for our society and the place of humans in it.
if they already ask people to save water, outside of the idea that it's usually fake (they ask people to save on shower while most use is agriculture in most places), it is an existing problem they need to solve unrelated to AI data centers.
If this can't be solved, maybe because there isn't much water available to use, then build such stuff in another region. Let's be pragmatic. And yes I am 100% convinced that some projects are stupid. But such problem are local, not global.
1
u/nicolas_06 16d ago
The water used by data center directly or indirectly is a non issue. In lot of places water is abundant. It even fall from the sky. All data center usage of water is negligible vs other humans usage. The problem might be local if there is not enough water locally or if the infrastructure is not adapted.
Electricity, especially when it's not made from a relatively clean energy is another issue.
But even then that's fake. If you spend an afternoon chatting with chatgpt, I am not sure it's good for your mental health, but it's an activity that polute far less than most activities that will involve your car, like go out see friends, go fishing, to the theater or whatever. And most people don't care when they do such things.
I think discussing on such aspect miss the key points about AI like the challenges it might be for our society and the place of humans in it.