7 ms·

AI threatens to raid the water reserves of Europe's driest regions

56 points by molteanu 1y ago

blueflow 1y ago
[flagged]
- Arnt 1y ago
  Like all those companies whose services you choose to use.
  - andybak 1y ago
    And we also vote for governments in the expectation they will regulate those companies. To put it another way. "Voting with my wallet" is a very inefficient way to send signals that I want a behaviour change from the company. I'd rather they were told directly with the force of law behind that request.
    - Arnt 1y ago
      Yes, so what change do you want, and are you going to act accordingly or just flail your arms meaninglessly? I assume that you, personally, have a car, or will buy one in your lifetime. Someone produces that car, and the production uses about 10⁵l of water. A little more generally, depending on what kind of car. If you count the water use of a modern LLM in the same way, that purchase corresponds to approximately one LLM query per minute for the rest of your life. If you don't care for cars, pick another product and do the math yourself. A pair of jeans maybe. It's really hard to do the math and find a product that doesn't use much more water than a year's worth of heavy AI use. So if it's water you care about, you have a lot of things you can affect much better. If you'd rather blame an outgroup, bigco execs will do. Or Wall Street.
- chgs 1y ago
  And AI drones defending them
- AbrahamParangi 1y ago
  Very impressive the top comment on this nonsense hit piece is someone vaguely implying extrajudicial ‘retribution’ is the appropriate solution to a problem which doesn’t actually exist.
  - aaron695 1y ago
    [dead]
resource_waste 1y ago
Farms or Tech? What is better? Its obvious from an economic standpoint, so I looked up from a security standpoint what crops Spain produces and it seems to be non-essentials. So its purely for export purposes. Tech will win if all is rational, but people have a soft heart for the status quo. Those poor farmers, what a sad story. I imagine they can probably rally the population against their own interests with the correct moral coating and maybe create a faux crisis of raising the prices of food by hoarding for a few months.
- lopis 1y ago
  > seems to be non-essentials I'd love to hear what non-essential food is less important that fricking AI data centers. > its purely for export purposes. Erm, yes? Spain is one of the main food producers of the EU, so that tracks. How is that an argument for anything?
- padjo 1y ago
  Good luck eating data centres.
boringg 1y ago
Change coolants and coolant processes. Improve our tech. Energy did upgrade water use - tech can too.
- elric 1y ago
  Easier said than done. Running a datacentre at scale is a costly operation with large up front investments. Revamping the cooling is another large cost. Maybe one that will save money in the long run, but still a big investment.
  - HPsquared 1y ago
    Compared to thousands of top-line chips, a few water pipes is a rounding error. Probably the main other thing related to water usage is energy cost, but even that is minor compared to the cost of the chips.
  - emushack 1y ago
    Good thing there are so many investors throwing billions of dollars at AI then! Maybe they should put that money to use coming up with better cooling systems.
sanex 1y ago
Can someone help me understand how cooling data centers "uses" water? The water presumably isn't destroyed it's just put back hotter than before right? I don't imagine it comes out as steam like a nuclear plant but I suppose it could.
- edude03 1y ago
  I asked a friend who works on datacenter this so it's secondhand information but - apparently it's cheaper to use mist cooling where you essentially spray cold water on hot parts and it evaporates off instead of the normal closed loop system that you'd see in a home water cooling for example. And while it's not destroyed, it means you need a constant supply of clean water, and the evaporated water doesn't necessarily go back to the body of water you got it from.
  - thatguy0900 1y ago
    Kind of crazy we let them blow through our limited clean water supplies just because it's cheaper
- lopis 1y ago
  Water is recycled in the cooling system, but part is lost through evaporation. But that's an excellent question, to which I have a hard time finding concrete numbers that answer it.
- luma 1y ago
  In dry/warm climates, evaporative cooling is very efficient if you have the water to spare. Otherwise, everything is closed loop as you suggest.
- sameermanek 1y ago
  Rain can deposit water in seas or lands away from country's border. Anyhow its always efficient and easy to collect water from a running river on its way to sea. Data centres can be designed to harvest the steam / evaporated water and reuse it but thats expensive too and they might not choose to do so.
- 1y ago
pier25 1y ago
Also happening in Mexico https://www.context.news/ai/thirsty-data-centres-spring-up-in-water-poor-mexican-town https://www.context.news/ai/thirsty-data-centres-spring-up-i...
schnitzelstoat 1y ago
I hope this cheap populism doesn't win out. As someone who actually lives in Spain I want there to be good jobs for my children in the future. Without tech companies and data centres we will just be a theme park for tourists with the poorly paid, precarious hospitality jobs that go along with that.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Data centers, once built, provide negligible numbers of jobs.
- hooverd 1y ago
  huh, the whole point of this AI is to replace said jobs though.
- julkali 1y ago
  How would "tech companies and data centres" alleviate the situation? Tech companies typically employ highly specialized staff that are often not even local to the community. The result of inviting tech companies to your country can be seen in Ireland (/Dublin). Data centres are even worse - they need only a handful of staff members while draining incredible amounts of energy and water. You live in Spain - why not advocate for boosting the energy sector, better grid infrastructure, more renewables, etc.? This would harness a tangible, sustainable strength of your country within the EU and, considering the blackout last month, is definitely something to work on before any tech company or datacentre can settle in Spain ...
  - schnitzelstoat 1y ago
    We have engineers in Spain too.
- diggan 1y ago
  > Without tech companies and data centres we will just be a theme park for tourists with the poorly paid Since when was Aragon ever a tourist hotspot? As far as I know (as another "actual" Spain resident), tourists flock to the coastal areas and the islands (and for some reason, Madrid), not to the inner-mainland like Teruel and Zaragoza.
nstj 1y ago
News article likely edited and proofed with AI
- add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
  Is there evidence of that? Is it badly written? Assuming everyone has already committed to the race to the bottom can only accelerate the feeling of inevitability around it.
- EGreg 1y ago
  Is this a form of the meme: https://images.app.goo.gl/zYoRKHJsCrLgyf989 https://images.app.goo.gl/zYoRKHJsCrLgyf989 Or this one? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-somewhat https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...
coliveira 1y ago
The charade of AI is that companies are running to replace people with fake intelligence, so in the future you'll have low quality services run by machines that have zero empathy and all the profit will be transferred to a monopoly.
llm_nerd 1y ago
Articles basically pander to the anti-AI crowd now -- knowing this group will run and share stories like this on all the socials -- and it just isn't useful. Firstly, they're talking about data centres, not "AI". AI is just the boogeyman now and 100% of usage suddenly is imagined to be ChatGPT exchanges. In reality it is mostly servicing sites like this, ad networks, backing up your iCloud photos, running your bank, etc. Secondly, price and regulate a resource appropriately and this wouldn't happen. The only data centres that run evaporative cooling do so because it's the least expensive option, and because it's allowed. In every normal place they run a closed circuit and the water usage is basically a rounding error. Further, articles like this never give a context. 94 million m2 (the 2030 forecast for every data centres across Europe combined, not just "AI") sounds super large. Unfathomably large. Paris uses double this. Of course Paris is a massive city, but then think of every other large city across Europe, every farm, etc. It ends up being a small slice, for something that is very important in people's lives.
- diggan 1y ago
  > In reality it is mostly servicing sites like this, ad networks, backing up your iCloud photos, running your bank, etc. In reality, GPUs slurp a lot of energy, and it would be missing the current situation if you don't think new data centers will include a lot more GPUs than they did just 5 years ago. Not saying the new data centers will mostly be GPUs, but current context surely changed the calculations of what a "modern" data center should contain. > price and regulate a resource appropriately and this wouldn't happen [...] In every normal place they run a closed circuit Pricing and regulation doesn't suddenly mean foreign investors won't try to get an already scarce resource allocated to them. And regardless of how closed the circuit is, once the water goes to the data center, it cannot also go to other uses, so the farmer ends up with less water.
endo_bunker 1y ago
If only there were some method for allocating scarce resources (such as water), by which everyone could indicate their perception of the relative value and some sort of equilibrium could be found.
- diggan 1y ago
  We should just create a World Government (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_constitution) and be done with it, global focus on the most pressing issues like water, food and getting rid of nuclear weapons.
- Eisenstein 1y ago
  Free markets fail when allocating resources like water. The problem is that when someone needs something to survive, the market stops working because the value is infinite to them. Another reason it doesn't work is because you can have people who need it but are too poor to pay what others will pay for it. If someone with more money comes in and buys all the water, they can then charge what they want for it or just dump it into the ocean if they feel like it. It also doesn't work when the product is common use, like a road or a park, because their is no profit in providing something everyone benefits from but will not directly pay to use. Property rights and markets are not the ultimate way to allocate all resources.
  - Ajedi32 1y ago
    > when someone needs something to survive, the market stops working because the value is infinite to them No, that's precisely the situation where markets work best: when resources are scarce. A single gallon of water isn't worth much to a data center or a farmer; you can't water a field with just one gallon. But it's potentially worth a lot to someone who's thirsty. Prices will go up, demand will drop, and supply will increase to meet demand, unless you kneecap that process by imposing artificial price controls - then you'll have shortages. > you can have people who need it but are too poor to pay what others will pay for it You're right, markets are not charities; they're only concerned with efficiency. Caring for people who can't take care of themselves isn't efficient, but it is the right thing to do. Even in this situation though you're better off with markets than without them, because it's way easier for people, organizations, and governments with excess resources to provide for the needy when they're operating in an efficient environment than in an inefficient one. > If someone [...] buys all the water That's called a monopoly and I agree that's not good, because if one person owns/controls everything it's no longer a free market; you're essentially back to central planning. Individuals and data centers should be able to buy their water in a competitive market, not one dominated by a single supplier. > It also doesn't work when the product is common use, like a road or a park Markets are actually great at allocating things like road space. NYC's congestion pricing is doing wonders for the efficiency of their road system right now, and tolls have been a thing basically forever. But I agree in principle it's hard for markets to allocate resources that there's no practical mechanism of charging for. Thankfully, water generally doesn't fall into that category.
sergiotapia 1y ago
Who owns this publication and who paid these two authors to write it? What's their angle?
hoseja 1y ago
"In 2024, Europe’s data center industry consumed about 62 million cubic meters of water, which is equivalent to about 24,000 Olympic swimming pools." In other words, about two cubic meters per second, a small shallow stream.
- hoseja 1y ago
  Here's a random example of one, current flow 2.16: https://mapy.com/en/zakladni?pid=107312153&newest=1&yaw=1.539&fov=1.257&pitch=0.497&x=16.8404065&y=49.8669896&z=19&ovl=8 https://mapy.com/en/zakladni?pid=107312153&newest=1&yaw=1.53...
austinkhale 1y ago
Per the article, all current European data centers used 62 million cubic meters of water for 2024. That is 3.4% of only Spain's existing desalination capacity (≈1.8 billion m³/yr). Seems like this is solvable: 1. Keep rolling out the closed-loop cooling improvements now appearing in new DC designs. 2. Add more desal capacity where it’s cheap (sunny coastlines + renewables) to cover the residual demand. Sources: - https://aedyr.com/plantas-desaladoras-agua-salobre-espana/ https://aedyr.com/plantas-desaladoras-agua-salobre-espana/
- leapingdog 1y ago
  If the data centre is coastal then desalination might be an extra step. A salt water heat exchanger might do the job.
demosthanos 1y ago
> As the sector grows, consumption is expected to reach 90 million cubic meters by 2030, according to the water sector lobby Water Europe. People who are trying to organize opposition to particular uses for water have a habit of citing the raw numbers without putting them in context, which works because there's so much water that the numbers are eye-wateringly large. It's hard to find concrete stats on total water usage (as opposed to percentage changes), but one report I found that helps to put this number in context is this [0]: > In addition, it takes 17,000 litres of water to produce a kilo of chocolate. According to statistics from 2019, Europe produced 3.7 million tonnes of chocolate, which equates to an eyewatering 63,625,200,000 litres of water. Since a liter is 1/1000 of a cubic meter, we're looking at 63 million cubic meters for European chocolate alone, which places chocolate in the same ballpark as Europe's data centers. Obviously data centers can and should work to conserve water (no misting in dry regions would help), but on the surface ~40% more water for data centers than for chocolate doesn't seem like that bad of a balance. [0] https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/07/09/our-water-footprint-understanding-europes-hidden-water-use https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/07/09/our-water-footprin...
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  I agree that the raw numbers without context can be misleading but couldn't it be argued that the water usage for chocolate is way too high and that we're vastly overproducing? Adding on more and more usage and saying it's only a percentage of what we already waste isn't a good long-term strategy.
  - demosthanos 1y ago
    Sure, but then it's silly to throw a fit about data centers which pretty clearly provide a greater benefit to Europe's interests than chocolate does. It's just another example of how the rhetoric gives the established water abusers a free pass while scrutinizing every cubic meter used for tech.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
  TBH, if I had to choose, I'd rather have chocolate than "AI data centers". These comparisons to existing uses of water besides cooling "AI data centers" ignore the fact that water use for "AI data centers" is additive. It is a _new_ use of water not seen before. As such, the comparisons to existing uses are unconvincing. A bizarre "justification" such as "[existing use, e.g., chocolate] is permitted to deplete water supplies therefore [new use, e.g., AI data centers] should be permitted to deplete water supplies by similar amounts" does not scale. The supply of water is not unlimited. Not all new uses can be accomodated without affecting other uses. This strange "reasoning" something like "so-and-so already does it" may appear to be based on some AI cheerleader notion of "fairness" but in reality it is based on a disregard for the limited nature of the resource, as if there is an unlimited supply. There is more money behind "AI" than chocolate. Truthfully, in the event of shortage, "fair" allocation where every use is accomodated is not realistic. People want chocolate. There are hundreds of years of history to prove it.^1 But do people want "AI". It is being forced on them. If they accept it, if they essentially have no choice, then is that the same as "wanting". 1. The history of "AI" is absurdly short by comparison. It includes long periods of years where interest in "AI" was lost. Perhaps an AI cheerleader can dig up something about "Chocolate Winters".
awongh 1y ago
I feel like this water-AI datacenter idea is the worst kind of whataboutism luddite thinking. To begin with: - it's almost certain that there is an over capacity of compute being built, and some kind of bubble. - money is being wasted being thrown after non-viable ideas *but* This is a technology that will fundamentally change the way humans think and do things. There will be plenty of amazing new discoveries that will benefit all of humanity that will come out of all of this. -probably the most purely virtuous will be bio-medical related (alphafold etc.) Yes, the capitalistic waste of resources is a shame, but any comment saying that the money should/can be used in a more cooperative/communal way are completely disconnected from reality. The relatively high-waste wheel of capital has been spun up and because moore's law seems to generally apply- if not to model training and inference itself, at least to the underlying hardware, we're going to get efficient systems eventually. I'm on the left and the environmental AI angle is one of the most regressive and short sighted takes from these people. I put it in the same bucket as anti-immigration left-green policies. Our new political world order is putting greens on the side of conservative, regressive authoritarianism and I don't like it. From that viewpoint it makes sense why young (optimistic, idealistic) people would want to vote republican.
- emushack 1y ago
  Have you ever suffered from water scarcity? Because I've lived it. This is a facile argument. Data centers are standing on the backs of so many others while at the same time using their piles of cash to force them to do more with less. And their argument about why is because the technology is so life changing and amazing. It's so sad that money and power blind people when there are viable technological alternatives available.
  - awongh 1y ago
    It's unclear what you really mean here, but "suffer" from "scarcity" could mean a few things. Tech is not immune from abuses of power, but most water scarcity that causes suffering (people being literally thirsty or can't wash their clothes) is not a resource issue (amount of water available)- it's a political/infrastructure issue. Don't build a data center that takes away people's clean drinking water. Build water infrastructure where people live. But of course that's not the problem described by the article, even though the writer would like to lightly imply that might be the case. Edit to add: Water and water rights in the western USA is a political issue that politicians would have you believe is not up to them. It's a scam and an advertising campaign that has people buying low flush toilets when a lot of the water is wasted by big Ag companies.
myrmidon 1y ago
Be very careful about considering this a "grassroots campaign" against "evil foreign megacorps". This is lobbying effort directed at policy makers and the public. As others have pointed out: There is an very simple solution to "solve" water waste/allocation: Just put a price on it. BUT one big interest group, namely agriculture/farmers, absolutely don't want that, because they historically could pretty much use water for free (and/or underpaid massively)-- any rational discussion about water use/price/allocation is undesirable to them, because it is likely to make the situation worse for them comparatively. This is also why the whole discussion centers round emotional arguments against allowing industrial water use at all, instead of arguing that small/local farmers should get a better price on it.
- emushack 1y ago
  Putting a price on it does not solve it because the entities that compete for the water with the data centers are out-matched financially. How is a city that has a budget that is constantly dealing with budget cuts supposed to pay more for water than a multi-billion dollar company? Taxing it does not solve it either, because there are so many incentives to writing loopholes into the tax code. They don't even have to use water - there are alternatives. The solve is changing behavior of the leaders in this greedy industry.
  - myrmidon 1y ago
    > Putting a price on it does not solve it because the entities that compete for the water with the data centers are out-matched financially. I don't think this argument works at all, because bigger datacenter operator does NOT mean "tolerates higher OPEX". > How is a city [...] supposed to pay more for water than a multi-billion dollar company? I do not understand this; the city would not compete with the datacenter operator for water-- the farmers would, and both of those would be paying the municipality for the water (ideally), not vice-versa. Residential users already pay much more for water (typically, compared to farming/industry) so any renegotiation is unlikely to affect them much.
    - emushack 1y ago
aziaziazi 1y ago
> the company [microsoft] plans to be water positive by 2030 which means that they “put more water into the local basins where we operate than we withdraw” > AWS has the same target, while Google has pledged to “replenish 120 percent of the freshwater volume we consume, on average, across our offices and data centers by 2030.” How is that supposed to work? The cynic in me can’t help thinking of an high-energy or production-externalities-imported system, but I’d be glad to ear about a sustainable local water creation.
- molteanu 1y ago
  If we would really have a chance to ask an official, whomever that may be, either from government or the tech companies, the (scripted) answer would probably go like this: By 2030, AI will make revolutionary advancements in water management which will reduce our total water consumption, reduce waste, improve the wastewater treatment efficiency by 15x, so that, overall, the industry is not consuming but producing water.
megaman821 1y ago
These AI water articles are all terrible. Data centers could use no water but more power. The evaporative cooling is to save energy. In fact it would still save energy to desalinate water and use that for evaporative cooling. But none of that really matters since data centers don't use much water in comparison to farms and other industries.
rdmuser 1y ago
I wonder if there might be an opportunity here to use evaporative cooling to boil off water from unpotable sources like seawater as a way to clean and desalinate it instead of using up our cleaner water supplies.

56 points by molteanu 1y ago

blueflow 1y ago

[flagged]

Arnt 1y ago
Like all those companies whose services you choose to use.
- andybak 1y ago
  And we also vote for governments in the expectation they will regulate those companies. To put it another way. "Voting with my wallet" is a very inefficient way to send signals that I want a behaviour change from the company. I'd rather they were told directly with the force of law behind that request.
  - Arnt 1y ago
    Yes, so what change do you want, and are you going to act accordingly or just flail your arms meaninglessly? I assume that you, personally, have a car, or will buy one in your lifetime. Someone produces that car, and the production uses about 10⁵l of water. A little more generally, depending on what kind of car. If you count the water use of a modern LLM in the same way, that purchase corresponds to approximately one LLM query per minute for the rest of your life. If you don't care for cars, pick another product and do the math yourself. A pair of jeans maybe. It's really hard to do the math and find a product that doesn't use much more water than a year's worth of heavy AI use. So if it's water you care about, you have a lot of things you can affect much better. If you'd rather blame an outgroup, bigco execs will do. Or Wall Street.
chgs 1y ago
And AI drones defending them
AbrahamParangi 1y ago
Very impressive the top comment on this nonsense hit piece is someone vaguely implying extrajudicial ‘retribution’ is the appropriate solution to a problem which doesn’t actually exist.
- aaron695 1y ago
  [dead]

resource_waste 1y ago

Farms or Tech? What is better? Its obvious from an economic standpoint, so I looked up from a security standpoint what crops Spain produces and it seems to be non-essentials. So its purely for export purposes. Tech will win if all is rational, but people have a soft heart for the status quo. Those poor farmers, what a sad story. I imagine they can probably rally the population against their own interests with the correct moral coating and maybe create a faux crisis of raising the prices of food by hoarding for a few months.

lopis 1y ago
> seems to be non-essentials I'd love to hear what non-essential food is less important that fricking AI data centers. > its purely for export purposes. Erm, yes? Spain is one of the main food producers of the EU, so that tracks. How is that an argument for anything?
padjo 1y ago
Good luck eating data centres.

boringg 1y ago

Change coolants and coolant processes. Improve our tech. Energy did upgrade water use - tech can too.

elric 1y ago
Easier said than done. Running a datacentre at scale is a costly operation with large up front investments. Revamping the cooling is another large cost. Maybe one that will save money in the long run, but still a big investment.
- HPsquared 1y ago
  Compared to thousands of top-line chips, a few water pipes is a rounding error. Probably the main other thing related to water usage is energy cost, but even that is minor compared to the cost of the chips.
- emushack 1y ago
  Good thing there are so many investors throwing billions of dollars at AI then! Maybe they should put that money to use coming up with better cooling systems.

sanex 1y ago

Can someone help me understand how cooling data centers "uses" water? The water presumably isn't destroyed it's just put back hotter than before right? I don't imagine it comes out as steam like a nuclear plant but I suppose it could.

edude03 1y ago
I asked a friend who works on datacenter this so it's secondhand information but - apparently it's cheaper to use mist cooling where you essentially spray cold water on hot parts and it evaporates off instead of the normal closed loop system that you'd see in a home water cooling for example. And while it's not destroyed, it means you need a constant supply of clean water, and the evaporated water doesn't necessarily go back to the body of water you got it from.
- thatguy0900 1y ago
  Kind of crazy we let them blow through our limited clean water supplies just because it's cheaper
lopis 1y ago
Water is recycled in the cooling system, but part is lost through evaporation. But that's an excellent question, to which I have a hard time finding concrete numbers that answer it.
luma 1y ago
In dry/warm climates, evaporative cooling is very efficient if you have the water to spare. Otherwise, everything is closed loop as you suggest.
sameermanek 1y ago
Rain can deposit water in seas or lands away from country's border. Anyhow its always efficient and easy to collect water from a running river on its way to sea. Data centres can be designed to harvest the steam / evaporated water and reuse it but thats expensive too and they might not choose to do so.
1y ago

pier25 1y ago

Also happening in Mexico https://www.context.news/ai/thirsty-data-centres-spring-up-in-water-poor-mexican-town https://www.context.news/ai/thirsty-data-centres-spring-up-i...

schnitzelstoat 1y ago

I hope this cheap populism doesn't win out. As someone who actually lives in Spain I want there to be good jobs for my children in the future. Without tech companies and data centres we will just be a theme park for tourists with the poorly paid, precarious hospitality jobs that go along with that.

rsynnott 1y ago
Data centers, once built, provide negligible numbers of jobs.
hooverd 1y ago
huh, the whole point of this AI is to replace said jobs though.
julkali 1y ago
How would "tech companies and data centres" alleviate the situation? Tech companies typically employ highly specialized staff that are often not even local to the community. The result of inviting tech companies to your country can be seen in Ireland (/Dublin). Data centres are even worse - they need only a handful of staff members while draining incredible amounts of energy and water. You live in Spain - why not advocate for boosting the energy sector, better grid infrastructure, more renewables, etc.? This would harness a tangible, sustainable strength of your country within the EU and, considering the blackout last month, is definitely something to work on before any tech company or datacentre can settle in Spain ...
- schnitzelstoat 1y ago
  We have engineers in Spain too.
diggan 1y ago
> Without tech companies and data centres we will just be a theme park for tourists with the poorly paid Since when was Aragon ever a tourist hotspot? As far as I know (as another "actual" Spain resident), tourists flock to the coastal areas and the islands (and for some reason, Madrid), not to the inner-mainland like Teruel and Zaragoza.

nstj 1y ago

News article likely edited and proofed with AI

add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
Is there evidence of that? Is it badly written? Assuming everyone has already committed to the race to the bottom can only accelerate the feeling of inevitability around it.
EGreg 1y ago
Is this a form of the meme: https://images.app.goo.gl/zYoRKHJsCrLgyf989 https://images.app.goo.gl/zYoRKHJsCrLgyf989 Or this one? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-somewhat https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...

coliveira 1y ago

The charade of AI is that companies are running to replace people with fake intelligence, so in the future you'll have low quality services run by machines that have zero empathy and all the profit will be transferred to a monopoly.

llm_nerd 1y ago

Articles basically pander to the anti-AI crowd now -- knowing this group will run and share stories like this on all the socials -- and it just isn't useful. Firstly, they're talking about data centres, not "AI". AI is just the boogeyman now and 100% of usage suddenly is imagined to be ChatGPT exchanges. In reality it is mostly servicing sites like this, ad networks, backing up your iCloud photos, running your bank, etc. Secondly, price and regulate a resource appropriately and this wouldn't happen. The only data centres that run evaporative cooling do so because it's the least expensive option, and because it's allowed. In every normal place they run a closed circuit and the water usage is basically a rounding error. Further, articles like this never give a context. 94 million m2 (the 2030 forecast for every data centres across Europe combined, not just "AI") sounds super large. Unfathomably large. Paris uses double this. Of course Paris is a massive city, but then think of every other large city across Europe, every farm, etc. It ends up being a small slice, for something that is very important in people's lives.

diggan 1y ago
> In reality it is mostly servicing sites like this, ad networks, backing up your iCloud photos, running your bank, etc. In reality, GPUs slurp a lot of energy, and it would be missing the current situation if you don't think new data centers will include a lot more GPUs than they did just 5 years ago. Not saying the new data centers will mostly be GPUs, but current context surely changed the calculations of what a "modern" data center should contain. > price and regulate a resource appropriately and this wouldn't happen [...] In every normal place they run a closed circuit Pricing and regulation doesn't suddenly mean foreign investors won't try to get an already scarce resource allocated to them. And regardless of how closed the circuit is, once the water goes to the data center, it cannot also go to other uses, so the farmer ends up with less water.

endo_bunker 1y ago

If only there were some method for allocating scarce resources (such as water), by which everyone could indicate their perception of the relative value and some sort of equilibrium could be found.

diggan 1y ago
We should just create a World Government (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_constitution) and be done with it, global focus on the most pressing issues like water, food and getting rid of nuclear weapons.
Eisenstein 1y ago
Free markets fail when allocating resources like water. The problem is that when someone needs something to survive, the market stops working because the value is infinite to them. Another reason it doesn't work is because you can have people who need it but are too poor to pay what others will pay for it. If someone with more money comes in and buys all the water, they can then charge what they want for it or just dump it into the ocean if they feel like it. It also doesn't work when the product is common use, like a road or a park, because their is no profit in providing something everyone benefits from but will not directly pay to use. Property rights and markets are not the ultimate way to allocate all resources.
- Ajedi32 1y ago
  > when someone needs something to survive, the market stops working because the value is infinite to them No, that's precisely the situation where markets work best: when resources are scarce. A single gallon of water isn't worth much to a data center or a farmer; you can't water a field with just one gallon. But it's potentially worth a lot to someone who's thirsty. Prices will go up, demand will drop, and supply will increase to meet demand, unless you kneecap that process by imposing artificial price controls - then you'll have shortages. > you can have people who need it but are too poor to pay what others will pay for it You're right, markets are not charities; they're only concerned with efficiency. Caring for people who can't take care of themselves isn't efficient, but it is the right thing to do. Even in this situation though you're better off with markets than without them, because it's way easier for people, organizations, and governments with excess resources to provide for the needy when they're operating in an efficient environment than in an inefficient one. > If someone [...] buys all the water That's called a monopoly and I agree that's not good, because if one person owns/controls everything it's no longer a free market; you're essentially back to central planning. Individuals and data centers should be able to buy their water in a competitive market, not one dominated by a single supplier. > It also doesn't work when the product is common use, like a road or a park Markets are actually great at allocating things like road space. NYC's congestion pricing is doing wonders for the efficiency of their road system right now, and tolls have been a thing basically forever. But I agree in principle it's hard for markets to allocate resources that there's no practical mechanism of charging for. Thankfully, water generally doesn't fall into that category.

sergiotapia 1y ago

Who owns this publication and who paid these two authors to write it? What's their angle?

hoseja 1y ago

"In 2024, Europe’s data center industry consumed about 62 million cubic meters of water, which is equivalent to about 24,000 Olympic swimming pools." In other words, about two cubic meters per second, a small shallow stream.

hoseja 1y ago
Here's a random example of one, current flow 2.16: https://mapy.com/en/zakladni?pid=107312153&newest=1&yaw=1.539&fov=1.257&pitch=0.497&x=16.8404065&y=49.8669896&z=19&ovl=8 https://mapy.com/en/zakladni?pid=107312153&newest=1&yaw=1.53...

austinkhale 1y ago

Per the article, all current European data centers used 62 million cubic meters of water for 2024. That is 3.4% of only Spain's existing desalination capacity (≈1.8 billion m³/yr). Seems like this is solvable: 1. Keep rolling out the closed-loop cooling improvements now appearing in new DC designs. 2. Add more desal capacity where it’s cheap (sunny coastlines + renewables) to cover the residual demand. Sources: - https://aedyr.com/plantas-desaladoras-agua-salobre-espana/ https://aedyr.com/plantas-desaladoras-agua-salobre-espana/

leapingdog 1y ago
If the data centre is coastal then desalination might be an extra step. A salt water heat exchanger might do the job.

demosthanos 1y ago

> As the sector grows, consumption is expected to reach 90 million cubic meters by 2030, according to the water sector lobby Water Europe. People who are trying to organize opposition to particular uses for water have a habit of citing the raw numbers without putting them in context, which works because there's so much water that the numbers are eye-wateringly large. It's hard to find concrete stats on total water usage (as opposed to percentage changes), but one report I found that helps to put this number in context is this [0]: > In addition, it takes 17,000 litres of water to produce a kilo of chocolate. According to statistics from 2019, Europe produced 3.7 million tonnes of chocolate, which equates to an eyewatering 63,625,200,000 litres of water. Since a liter is 1/1000 of a cubic meter, we're looking at 63 million cubic meters for European chocolate alone, which places chocolate in the same ballpark as Europe's data centers. Obviously data centers can and should work to conserve water (no misting in dry regions would help), but on the surface ~40% more water for data centers than for chocolate doesn't seem like that bad of a balance. [0] https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/07/09/our-water-footprint-understanding-europes-hidden-water-use https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/07/09/our-water-footprin...

AlecSchueler 1y ago
I agree that the raw numbers without context can be misleading but couldn't it be argued that the water usage for chocolate is way too high and that we're vastly overproducing? Adding on more and more usage and saying it's only a percentage of what we already waste isn't a good long-term strategy.
- demosthanos 1y ago
  Sure, but then it's silly to throw a fit about data centers which pretty clearly provide a greater benefit to Europe's interests than chocolate does. It's just another example of how the rhetoric gives the established water abusers a free pass while scrutinizing every cubic meter used for tech.
1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
TBH, if I had to choose, I'd rather have chocolate than "AI data centers". These comparisons to existing uses of water besides cooling "AI data centers" ignore the fact that water use for "AI data centers" is additive. It is a _new_ use of water not seen before. As such, the comparisons to existing uses are unconvincing. A bizarre "justification" such as "[existing use, e.g., chocolate] is permitted to deplete water supplies therefore [new use, e.g., AI data centers] should be permitted to deplete water supplies by similar amounts" does not scale. The supply of water is not unlimited. Not all new uses can be accomodated without affecting other uses. This strange "reasoning" something like "so-and-so already does it" may appear to be based on some AI cheerleader notion of "fairness" but in reality it is based on a disregard for the limited nature of the resource, as if there is an unlimited supply. There is more money behind "AI" than chocolate. Truthfully, in the event of shortage, "fair" allocation where every use is accomodated is not realistic. People want chocolate. There are hundreds of years of history to prove it.^1 But do people want "AI". It is being forced on them. If they accept it, if they essentially have no choice, then is that the same as "wanting". 1. The history of "AI" is absurdly short by comparison. It includes long periods of years where interest in "AI" was lost. Perhaps an AI cheerleader can dig up something about "Chocolate Winters".

awongh 1y ago

I feel like this water-AI datacenter idea is the worst kind of whataboutism luddite thinking. To begin with: - it's almost certain that there is an over capacity of compute being built, and some kind of bubble. - money is being wasted being thrown after non-viable ideas *but* This is a technology that will fundamentally change the way humans think and do things. There will be plenty of amazing new discoveries that will benefit all of humanity that will come out of all of this. -probably the most purely virtuous will be bio-medical related (alphafold etc.) Yes, the capitalistic waste of resources is a shame, but any comment saying that the money should/can be used in a more cooperative/communal way are completely disconnected from reality. The relatively high-waste wheel of capital has been spun up and because moore's law seems to generally apply- if not to model training and inference itself, at least to the underlying hardware, we're going to get efficient systems eventually. I'm on the left and the environmental AI angle is one of the most regressive and short sighted takes from these people. I put it in the same bucket as anti-immigration left-green policies. Our new political world order is putting greens on the side of conservative, regressive authoritarianism and I don't like it. From that viewpoint it makes sense why young (optimistic, idealistic) people would want to vote republican.

emushack 1y ago
Have you ever suffered from water scarcity? Because I've lived it. This is a facile argument. Data centers are standing on the backs of so many others while at the same time using their piles of cash to force them to do more with less. And their argument about why is because the technology is so life changing and amazing. It's so sad that money and power blind people when there are viable technological alternatives available.
- awongh 1y ago
  It's unclear what you really mean here, but "suffer" from "scarcity" could mean a few things. Tech is not immune from abuses of power, but most water scarcity that causes suffering (people being literally thirsty or can't wash their clothes) is not a resource issue (amount of water available)- it's a political/infrastructure issue. Don't build a data center that takes away people's clean drinking water. Build water infrastructure where people live. But of course that's not the problem described by the article, even though the writer would like to lightly imply that might be the case. Edit to add: Water and water rights in the western USA is a political issue that politicians would have you believe is not up to them. It's a scam and an advertising campaign that has people buying low flush toilets when a lot of the water is wasted by big Ag companies.

myrmidon 1y ago

Be very careful about considering this a "grassroots campaign" against "evil foreign megacorps". This is lobbying effort directed at policy makers and the public. As others have pointed out: There is an very simple solution to "solve" water waste/allocation: Just put a price on it. BUT one big interest group, namely agriculture/farmers, absolutely don't want that, because they historically could pretty much use water for free (and/or underpaid massively)-- any rational discussion about water use/price/allocation is undesirable to them, because it is likely to make the situation worse for them comparatively. This is also why the whole discussion centers round emotional arguments against allowing industrial water use at all, instead of arguing that small/local farmers should get a better price on it.

emushack 1y ago
Putting a price on it does not solve it because the entities that compete for the water with the data centers are out-matched financially. How is a city that has a budget that is constantly dealing with budget cuts supposed to pay more for water than a multi-billion dollar company? Taxing it does not solve it either, because there are so many incentives to writing loopholes into the tax code. They don't even have to use water - there are alternatives. The solve is changing behavior of the leaders in this greedy industry.
- myrmidon 1y ago
  > Putting a price on it does not solve it because the entities that compete for the water with the data centers are out-matched financially. I don't think this argument works at all, because bigger datacenter operator does NOT mean "tolerates higher OPEX". > How is a city [...] supposed to pay more for water than a multi-billion dollar company? I do not understand this; the city would not compete with the datacenter operator for water-- the farmers would, and both of those would be paying the municipality for the water (ideally), not vice-versa. Residential users already pay much more for water (typically, compared to farming/industry) so any renegotiation is unlikely to affect them much.
  - emushack 1y ago

aziaziazi 1y ago

> the company [microsoft] plans to be water positive by 2030 which means that they “put more water into the local basins where we operate than we withdraw” > AWS has the same target, while Google has pledged to “replenish 120 percent of the freshwater volume we consume, on average, across our offices and data centers by 2030.” How is that supposed to work? The cynic in me can’t help thinking of an high-energy or production-externalities-imported system, but I’d be glad to ear about a sustainable local water creation.

molteanu 1y ago
If we would really have a chance to ask an official, whomever that may be, either from government or the tech companies, the (scripted) answer would probably go like this: By 2030, AI will make revolutionary advancements in water management which will reduce our total water consumption, reduce waste, improve the wastewater treatment efficiency by 15x, so that, overall, the industry is not consuming but producing water.

megaman821 1y ago

These AI water articles are all terrible. Data centers could use no water but more power. The evaporative cooling is to save energy. In fact it would still save energy to desalinate water and use that for evaporative cooling. But none of that really matters since data centers don't use much water in comparison to farms and other industries.

rdmuser 1y ago

I wonder if there might be an opportunity here to use evaporative cooling to boil off water from unpotable sources like seawater as a way to clean and desalinate it instead of using up our cleaner water supplies.