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I posted this because I thought it was interesting. I've seen a lot of comments about AI water usage. This article feels a bit biased and I would love to see H

I posted this because I thought it was interesting. I've seen a lot of comments about AI water usage. This article feels a bit biased and I would love to see HN's take.

alterom 5mo ago
To say it's a bit biased is an understatement. The AI water usage is a real problem because AI datacenters are effectively unregulated. Yes, a car factory would be expected to use water, which is why we have environmental regulations in place. "Lagging behind in AI" is treated as a national emergency which warrants forgetting about regulations. This isn't some sort of quirk or accident; it's very much created by people writing headlines lie "The AI water issue is fake". The following are symptomatic and typical: - 800 data center approved in spite of vehement protests of the locals [1] - Data center blatantly violates water regulations. When it comes to light, administration refuses to do anything about it [2] - Data center gets constructed in historically disadvantaged / redlined areas disproportionately and adversely affecting Black people. Air quality drops. Nothing is done about it [3] The AI water issue is indeed a red herring, because it is a part of a larger issue of the AI industry having free reign over anything that's deemed necessary for its existence. The impact on people's lives and health is real. To say that the issue is "fake" is disingenuous at best, disinformation at worst. [1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/800-acre-data-center-approved-012000853.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/800-acre-data-center-app... [2] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/georgia-data-center-used-29-million-gallons-of-water https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/georgia-data-cent... [3] https://islandpress.medium.com/data-centers-threaten-black-communities-heres-how-to-fight-back-f11082a7f42a https://islandpress.medium.com/data-centers-threaten-black-c...
- hackeraccount 5mo ago
  Is regulation the word you're looking for? It seems like you just need to get pricing right not regulation.
  - alterom 5mo ago
    Yes, the word I'm looking for is "regulation". Environmental pricing doesn't make much sense now, does it? Another word I'm looking for is externality, as in: negative externality. Actually, I'm not looking for words at all. I know these words well, and use them with intent. Do you?
cess11 5mo ago
I'd say it's heavily biased but tries hard to not look like it, in a way similar to what tobacco and fossil fuel corporations have been doing for decades. The author is financed by some 'effective altruism' cultists operating a supposedly philantropic fund. For a less partisan article on the same topic, this one might be worthwhile to you: https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/land-lines-magazine/articles/land-water-impacts-data-centers/ https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/land-lines-magazine... The problems with 'data centers for AI' don't stop at water consumption, which is absolutely a real risk in some cases due to the relevant corporations having a knack for finding areas with really small or stressed aquifers and building there. It's also somewhat common to skirt or just straight up abuse legal protections against corporate tyranny, e.g. by running noisy or polluting turbines. Then the idea itself to eradicate the Internet and put everyone behind a SaaS database intermediary should be quite unpalatable to any sane and freedom loving person. Especially since these databases obviously make quite a lot of people insane or otherwise mentally disabled, including prominent figures in the movement to push this through.
phendrenad2 5mo ago
It is interesting, and this conversation has been happening buried within other threads on HN - it would be good to have the discussion as its own topic. Sadly it's flagged, so for now I guess it's still too contentious.
cm277 5mo ago
As a Euro/American, it's kind of shocking to me that the US is fast re-inventing communism (and fascism) from first principles: apparently, industries and technologies are 'good' or 'bad' based on their alignment with the ideology of a vocal 'elite'. Last time this happened (70s) we put nuclear energy on a shelf and ended up with global warming. The West has invented a perfect mechanism for controlling the use of resources for the common good: money. If water is a scarce resource, charge a lot of money for it. If AI (or whomever) can pay for it, so be it, other sources of water (desalination perhaps?) will be invented. I am saying this as a liberal and an AI-sceptic: Ideology should never outweigh outcomes.

I posted this because I thought it was interesting. I've seen a lot of comments about AI water usage. This article feels a bit biased and I would love to see HN's take.

alterom 5mo ago

To say it's a bit biased is an understatement. The AI water usage is a real problem because AI datacenters are effectively unregulated. Yes, a car factory would be expected to use water, which is why we have environmental regulations in place. "Lagging behind in AI" is treated as a national emergency which warrants forgetting about regulations. This isn't some sort of quirk or accident; it's very much created by people writing headlines lie "The AI water issue is fake". The following are symptomatic and typical: - 800 data center approved in spite of vehement protests of the locals [1] - Data center blatantly violates water regulations. When it comes to light, administration refuses to do anything about it [2] - Data center gets constructed in historically disadvantaged / redlined areas disproportionately and adversely affecting Black people. Air quality drops. Nothing is done about it [3] The AI water issue is indeed a red herring, because it is a part of a larger issue of the AI industry having free reign over anything that's deemed necessary for its existence. The impact on people's lives and health is real. To say that the issue is "fake" is disingenuous at best, disinformation at worst. [1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/800-acre-data-center-approved-012000853.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/800-acre-data-center-app... [2] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/georgia-data-center-used-29-million-gallons-of-water https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/georgia-data-cent... [3] https://islandpress.medium.com/data-centers-threaten-black-communities-heres-how-to-fight-back-f11082a7f42a https://islandpress.medium.com/data-centers-threaten-black-c...

hackeraccount 5mo ago
Is regulation the word you're looking for? It seems like you just need to get pricing right not regulation.
- alterom 5mo ago
  Yes, the word I'm looking for is "regulation". Environmental pricing doesn't make much sense now, does it? Another word I'm looking for is externality, as in: negative externality. Actually, I'm not looking for words at all. I know these words well, and use them with intent. Do you?

cess11 5mo ago

I'd say it's heavily biased but tries hard to not look like it, in a way similar to what tobacco and fossil fuel corporations have been doing for decades. The author is financed by some 'effective altruism' cultists operating a supposedly philantropic fund. For a less partisan article on the same topic, this one might be worthwhile to you: https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/land-lines-magazine/articles/land-water-impacts-data-centers/ https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/land-lines-magazine... The problems with 'data centers for AI' don't stop at water consumption, which is absolutely a real risk in some cases due to the relevant corporations having a knack for finding areas with really small or stressed aquifers and building there. It's also somewhat common to skirt or just straight up abuse legal protections against corporate tyranny, e.g. by running noisy or polluting turbines. Then the idea itself to eradicate the Internet and put everyone behind a SaaS database intermediary should be quite unpalatable to any sane and freedom loving person. Especially since these databases obviously make quite a lot of people insane or otherwise mentally disabled, including prominent figures in the movement to push this through.

phendrenad2 5mo ago

It is interesting, and this conversation has been happening buried within other threads on HN - it would be good to have the discussion as its own topic. Sadly it's flagged, so for now I guess it's still too contentious.

cm277 5mo ago

As a Euro/American, it's kind of shocking to me that the US is fast re-inventing communism (and fascism) from first principles: apparently, industries and technologies are 'good' or 'bad' based on their alignment with the ideology of a vocal 'elite'. Last time this happened (70s) we put nuclear energy on a shelf and ended up with global warming. The West has invented a perfect mechanism for controlling the use of resources for the common good: money. If water is a scarce resource, charge a lot of money for it. If AI (or whomever) can pay for it, so be it, other sources of water (desalination perhaps?) will be invented. I am saying this as a liberal and an AI-sceptic: Ideology should never outweigh outcomes.