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Farmland, AI data centers, and golf courses do not provide the same utility for water used. You are not making an argument against the water usage problem, you
by lynndotpy 1y ago
Farmland, AI data centers, and golf courses do not provide the same utility for water used. You are not making an argument against the water usage problem, you are only dismissing it.
- simonw 1y agoRight, I think a data center produces a heck of a lot more economic and human value in a year - for a lot more people - than the same amount of water used for farming or golf.
- notahacker 1y agoyou can make a strong argument for the greater necessity of farming for survival, but not for golf...
- kjkjadksj 1y agoGod forbid the public has an amenity.
- idiotsecant 1y agoI mean... Food is pretty important ...
- simonw 1y agoWhich is why the comparison in the amount of water usage matters. Data centers in the USA use less than a fraction of a percent of the water that's used for agriculture. I'll start worrying about competition with water for food production when that value goes up by a multiple of about 1000.
- wongarsu 1y agoCorn, potatoes and wheat are important maybe even oranges, but we could live with a lot less alfalfa and almonds. Also a lot less meat in general. A huge part of our agriculture is feed to feed our food. We need some meat, but the current amount is excessive
- plufz 1y ago> Corn, potatoes and wheat are important maybe even oranges, but we could live with a lot less alfalfa and almonds. Both alfalfa and almonds contain a lot of nutrients you dont find in large enough amounts (or at all) in corn and potatoes though. And alfalfa improves the soil but fixating nitrogen. Sure almonds require large amounts of water. Maybe alfalfa does as well? And of course it depends on if they are grown for human consumption or animal.
- roywiggins 1y agoThe water intensity of American food production would be substantially less if we gave up on frivolous things like beef, which requires water vastly out of proportion to its utility. If the water numbers for datacenters seem scary then the water use numbers for the average American's beef consumption is apocalyptic.
- gishh 1y agoI appreciate that you feel this way, it’ll never happen. The US will never give up on eating meat. Full stop. For every vegan/vegetarian in the US there are probably 25 people that feed beef products to their pets on a daily basis.
- lynndotpy 1y agoWhile I agree, the "meat is not sustainable" argument is literal, and evidenced in beef prices rising as beef consumption lowers over the past years. Beef is moving along the spectrum from having had been a "staple" to increasingly being a luxury. The US never gave up eating lobster either, but many here have never had lobster and almost nobody has lobster even once a week. It's a luxury which used to be a staple.
- ben_w 1y agoBeef is not the only meat. Chicken is much less water intensive.
- BeFlatXIII 1y agoFrom the animal welfare perspective, there's much more suffering involved in producing a pound of chicken than a pound of beef.
- ben_w 1y agoThat depends how sentient a chicken is: their brains are of similar complexity to the larger of these models, counting params as synapses. Also, while I'm vegetarian going on vegan, welfare arguments are obviously not relevant in response to an assertation that Americans aren't going to give up meat, because if animal welfare was relevant then Americans would give up meat.
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- Aransentin 1y agoGrowing almonds uses 1.3 trillion gallons of water annually in California alone. This is more than 4 times more than all data centers in the US combined, counting both cooling and the water used for generating their electricity. What has more utility: Californian almonds, or all IT infrastructure in the US times 4?
- fmbb 1y agoDepends on what the datacenters are used for. AI has no utility. Almonds make marzipan.
- embedding-shape 1y agoWell, I don't like marzipan, so both are useless? Or maybe different people find uses/utility from different things, what is trash for one person can be life saving for another, or just "better than not having it" (like you and Marzipan it seems).
- simonw 1y ago"AI has no utility" is a pretty wild claim to make in the tail end of 2025.
- infecto 1y agoStill surprised to see so many take this as such a hot claim. Is there hype, absolutely, is there value being driven also absolutely.
- stavros 1y agoWhenever I see someone say AI has no utility, I'm happy that I don't have to waste time in an argument against someone out of touch with reality.
- Aransentin 1y agoI'm more unhappy than happy, as there are plenty of points about the very real bad side of AI that are hurt by such delusional and/or disingenuous arguments. That is, the topic is not one where I have already picked a side that I'd like to win by any means necessary. It's one where I think there are legitimate tradeoffs, and I want the strongest arguments on both sides to be heard so we get the best possible policies in the end.
- dist-epoch 1y agoThat is correct, AI data centers deliver far more utility per unit of water than farm/golf land.
- fodkodrasz 1y agoWater usage largely depends on the context, if the water source is sustainable, and if it is freshwater. Of course water used up will eventually evaporate, and produce rainfall in the water cycle, but unfortunately at many places "fossil" water is used up, or more water used in an area then the watershed can sustainably support. This is a constant source of miscommunication about water usage, and that of agriculture also. It is very different to talk about the water needs to raise a cow in eg. Colorado and in Scotish highlands, but this is usually removed from the picture. The same context should be considered for datacenters.
- simianwords 1y agowho are you to determine the utility? we have the market for it and it has spoken.
- asdfman123 1y agoThey are making an anti-disruption argument. I think it's bad though to be against growth, for reasons I've described in another comment.