It’s companies, companies and their capitalist owners doing it. The hammer doesn’t make the table.
AI is draining water from areas that need it most
Submitted 1 month ago by cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-centers-water-data
Comments
Randomgal@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
i still don’t get why they need to throw the water away
cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Not throw away. It evaporates.
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
in a closed system? that quickly?
VagueAnodyneComments@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Nice of Mister Bloomberg to let us know how destructive he and his colleagues’ obsessive war against labor is to the environment.
PoopMonster@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I don’t mean to sound like a dick but do they have proof or anything linking the data centers as the cause to the high water stress? This seems like a very short article claiming they use a lot of water (which they likely do) but don’t present anything other than “Ai consumes in mense amounts of water to cool…”. You’d think they don’t require as much water due to the fact they are being built in already stressed out areas.
cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
I’m also confused on how they are “consuming” the water. I’m guessing they aren’t closed loop like most later cooling, but are they just… using it till it evaporates? I legitimately don’t understand where this water goes that it’s just… gone?
kn33@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yes, but I’d say it goes further. Using it until it evaporates isn’t a side effect of some other cooling process. Evaporating the water is the cooling process.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Presumably not gone, just from food quality to dirty.
luce@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
I feel that although there are many issues with how machine learning/“AI” is being used, there isnt really as much of an environmental issue as we are led on to believe. Many will write about how AI consumes large amounts of energy, but will not mention how data centers only make 1-2% of energy consumption worldwide, and most data centers arent focusing fully on AI making the actual percentage of “worldwide energy used by AI” much much smaller.
Alex avila actually argued this very well in his newest video essay, even showing that much of this worry about AI energy use is backed by companies with stakes in energy.