Imagine not being able to shower, because AI slop generator machines need that water!

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• SpeedRunner@europe.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Actually yes. They did vote for this.

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  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If a salesman misrepresents his product in any way of form, he gets called a swindler, faces potential legal consequences, and the people who bought his product are called “victims”.

    If a politician does this, it’s just “business as usual”, and his voters were supposed to do enough research to make the correct choice.

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    • braydan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      [deleted]

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• Laser@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  People should be angry and upset about this. Similar to the story some weeks ago where residents of a small Texan town (seemingly rightfully at first) complained about the noise pollution of a Bitcoin mining farm. Turns out they all voted Republican. It’s always “we’ll deregulate and bring business” just that the modern businesses they bring are a net negative for the area except for the politicians and the companies. Is almost like these regulations were there for a reason.

  Both Bitcoin and AI are stupid VC money that only matters in a very small bubble, and they’re not business in a traditional sense. They just leech resources at their compute centers to make the people who own them and live far away rich. I pity all this who didn’t vote for this kind of bullshit. The rest, enjoy your shorter showers and everything else! But remember, it’s the Dems who want to dictate stuff like water usage. Not in my free country! Oh, the water is gone because a greedy Corp stole it? That’s fine, one day it’s my turn to be rich.

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  • bigfondue@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You could consider them an extractive industry like mineral mining. In this case the electricity and water are turned into profit. It creates some local jobs like construction, but the system administrators are likely hired from elsewhere. The R&D is likely being done elsewhere as well. Most of the money these businesses spend goes straight to Nvidia and the profit goes straight to a small group of executives and investors.

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    • Laser@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      At least mining did create some local jobs, though I do think that the area itself loses out because it’s a finite resource and the environmental impact is always there. And as you said, these modern examples don’t really require a big local workforce. It doesn’t stimulate the local economy a bit.

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  • brachiosaurus@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If you care about the environment and are upset about corporations and their datacenters your best voting option is neither the red or blue party.

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    • Laser@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It doesn’t matter if you voted Republican. These problems are a direct consequence of Republican policies that they announced before the elections. Fearmongering about “any party left of us will take away your freedoms to limit your resource consumption” is a trait of far-right parties. My point was not about Democrats. It was about people who vote Republican.

      The US has a political problem with its voting system that benefits two parties, and they won’t get rid of it. As long as this is the case, no other party matters. Also, Dems usually enact more regulations for the environment; see also California.

      I voted neither Reps or Dems because I live in the EU, and my vote always went to Greens or other environmental parties.

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• AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This but just the Microsoft logo lol

  Image

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  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “Since Microsoft dropped its DEI initiatives, it’s good actually!”

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  • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’ve heard it said that the austrian school/anarcho capitalism is the anti Vax/flat earth of economics

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• Zacryon@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It’s always a good idea to put computer centers in areas with water scarcity. /s

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  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    In hot areas with water scarcity.

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    • ToastedRavioli@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      And an electrical grid held together by duct tape and chewing gum

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    • Silic0n_Alph4@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Well, yeah. If you put it somewhere cold like the Arctic it’ll melt the ice caps and make global warming worse. Better to let the cold places stay cold and put the hot data centres somewhere that’s already hot! Sorted - no more global warming (just some localised warming I guess)

      “I’ll just put this over here with the rest of the fire” image from The IT Crowd

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  • Patches@ttrpg.network ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I mean from Microsoft’s perspective it is working out…

    Until someone goes all eco terrorism.

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    • bold_atlas@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I often wondered about how much chaos one or two individuals were to just pump 5 or 6 high powered rounds on that place from 2,000 yards out. Then do again another day from a different spot, and then another day at different facility.

      Yeah damage and casualties would be insignificant at those ranges but the fear and panic as random bullets crack over head in the parking lot, punching holes in the roof. The place would have to shut down while they search for damage and FBI will also take forever recovering every bullet fragment evidence. It would take two or three of these in a row before the police realized they weren’t just loose bullets from drunks shooting into the air.

      It would lead to a total loss of productivity. Like they would have to treat every facility with same security levels as fucking Groom Lake after something like started happening lol. Or maybe they would just fuck off to somewhere far away from crazy gun loving Americans.

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  • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Well, it could work. If the local government gave a shit. Which they don’t, because Texas. But the water going into a datacenter does come out… The main downside being that it’s hotter (which is a limiting factor, you can’t run it in a loop without some big cooling system, and rivers/lakes are by far the most effective way way to do that).

    The article I saw doesn’t say what the problem is exactly. Is the datacenter pumping from an aquifer rather than a lake/river? Are they raising the temperature in ways that affect the environment negatively? Are they abusing the municipal water supply instead of pumping their own water, forcing the taxpayer to essentially subsidize their infrastructure? Lots that could go wrong, but it’s all shit that should be fully figured out during the permitting process.

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• uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  During the 1986-1992 California drought, we were informed in the San Francisco Bay Area region that water service prices were going to go up unless we conserved strictly.

  They said this to a bunch of California hippies, on account that we were in California.

  So we way got on board. We stopped flushing. Any water that was rendered non-potable we’d repurpose for watering plants or filter it for second use. Japanese naval baths (weird tiny bowl seats and a sponge, used in the Imperial Navy, WWII) got popular so people were keeping clean via a tenth of normal water usage.

  We conserved too much according to the water department and they raised prices anyway.

  This sparked some investigations (by journalists, since investigative journalism was still a thing then) and found that agriculture got water for much cheaper, and was still using it once before flushing it (now laced with pesticides) out into the sea. Needless to say, we conservationist hippies were livid.

  It’s still a problem, as the utility companies routinely lobby our congress and governor (and Newsom may know how to be a California liberal, but he’s still a Dianne-Feinstein-style ( / Nancy-Pelosi style) money-grubbing neoliberal. He just has game, especially when opposed to far right idiots. The setup in Monster’s Inc (power crisis in a city where scream is the principal power source) was inspired by the Enron fraud affair leading to rolling blackouts and Texas siphoning off California’s general fund. And our governments from Schwarzenegger (who I will never forgive) to Newsom are in the pocket of PG&E. (I’m on SMUD now and my bill is conspicuously less.)

  Also, according to Climate Town, the Sauds own a lot of California farmland, where they grow alfalfa to import to the mid-east to feed their cows. Alfalfa crops are one of the most water hungry, and is one of the big ways beef is driving the climate crisis (and towards a massive food shortage and global famine!) and the water tables, to which they have access and first-tap rights, gets lower every year. 🕙

  So I suspect that the Texas AI centers are getting water at a cheaper rate than private homes. Maybe it’s something to get active about.

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  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    So the people should build a giant warehouse that uses a bazillion gallons of water that feeds into the warehouse and in the same pipe back to the water system, get wholesale rates and charge consumers the cheaper rate!

    Same pipe, just make sure it goes into the warehouse so you can charge people for what leaves.

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    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You want to trust the water a data center with zero regulations is regurgitating?

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  • jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I hate how datacenters get blamed for issues that are clearly caused more by shitty outdoor farms than cooling towers

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    • burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      would you like to read about the xAI data center that is poisoning anyone unfortunate enough to live near it time.com/7021709/elon-musk-xai-grok-memphis/

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• Almacca@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  If AI centres need so much cooling, why are they building them in Texas in the first place?

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  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Lack of regulations of all kinds

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    • Almacca@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      On a suspicion, I had a quick look, and of course there’s also tax incentives, apparently.

      Love this quote “Texas had long been a preferred location for large data centers given its central location, economic climate, reliable electric grid, historically low occurrences of natural disasters, educated workforce and pro-business environment.” :|

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  • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Solar power?

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    • Almacca@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Apparently only partially, but mostly a natural gas plant to even further wreck the planet.

      There’s hundreds of billions of dollars available to pour into this, and for what benefit to the nation? Meanwhile, the rest of the country’s infrastructure is crumbling.

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  • haloduder@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Texans are some of the dumbest Americans, so they are proud to allow businesses to exploit them.

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  • haloduder@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Texans are some of the dumbest Americans, so they are proud to allow businesses to exploit them.

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  • haloduder@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Texans are some of the dumbest Americans, so they are proud to allow businesses to exploit them.

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• turdburglar@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  elon is currrently. using the aquifer drinking water under memphis to cool grok. he’s also powering it with generators and smogging out the city.

  please do not use grok.

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  • ignotum@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I don’t care, nothing will come inbetween me and my boi, mecha hitler!

    /j if that wasn’t obvious

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    • 0x0@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      mecha hitler!

      So someone fed it Cards Against Humanity, huh?

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• Freefall@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Yes, Texas did vote for that. Haha, Red states suffering is funny.

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  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes, Texas did vote for that.

    How a fraction of voters decide who runs Texas

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    • FosterMolasses@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I know not everyone’s guilty, but let’s be real. Anyone still living in Texas after having a near decade to see the writing on the wall to get their shit together and leave (and I don’t mean something as arduous as immigrating, I mean literally just moving across the state border) kind of only has themselves to blame.

      It’s ground zero for Trump Administration neo-conservatism [fascism]. Genuinely, what do they expect?

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  • ours@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    They owned the libs themselves…

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    • CaptnNMorgan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They owned the themselves

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  • caboose2006@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Whether or not they did we all exist under the same atmosphere.

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• bluelander@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Texan here: we barely get to vote on shit at all. And they’re gerrymandering to make it even harder.

  I’d call Texas a clown car but it’s too big to qualify.

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  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The estimate of the majority Democrats would need to retake the Senate is something like 70/30, based on the degree of gerrymandering.

    And the math just gets worse every time maps are redrawn.

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    • uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      How strong is Fair Maps Texas? Assuming it’s sincere in its effort to redistrict Texas fairly, Maybe they need more brickthrowers saboteurs sign wavers and clerical volunteers.

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  • minkymunkey_7_7@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    After Civil War 2, Texas and parts of Mexico would end it with a treaty as a single independent country with their own shit stains to live with.

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• Goun@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  @grok this true?

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  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    incomprehensible text about being mechahitler

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    • Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Grok: “Antisemetic, communist bankers are being stingy with public water.”

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• xia@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I don’t understand why AI data centers would CONSUME water. Once they fill up their chiller loops, then… that’s it, right?

  It’s hard for me to imagine them relying on the temperature of the incoming water, and dumping all the warm water as discharge.

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  • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    They’re probably using cooling towers, which cool through evaporation. They should be using reclaimed though.

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    • SL3wvmnas@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      As long as it is cheaper to buy water, then evaporate it, big firms will continue to do so.

      With a COP of around 15 and up it is difficult to argue with the economy of this.

      Local regulation would be required, but that would need politicians who don’t suck.

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    • frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This is the right answer. They use evaporative cooling. Which does save a lot of power so they can claim to be “green”.

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  • waspentalive@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I worked 10 years at a data center, all that water is recycled - it is very carefully chemically balanced so as to not corrode the pipes and pumps, no they do not use it once and dump it out.

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    • bold_atlas@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      But it does spoil and evaporate doesn’t it? So it’s still a continuous demand that’s not sustainable in that part of the world.

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  • Forfaden@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    From what I’ve seen it’s “not worth the effort or expense” to reuse the water. Some of them literally just send tap water through the cooling loops and then into the sewer drains

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  • WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Because the massive stacks of high-powered chips that they use, tend to get very hot. They don’t use the kind of computers that work through passive cooling.

    I say, as my Laptop burns into my lap.

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• UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Why the fuck do they alway pick the driest places to use the most water. Fucking morons

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  • bitwolf@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I always rant about tech moving to Austin.

    They need low heat, reliable power, and an abundance of water.

    Texas is literally none of those things.

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    • Soapbox@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We have low regulations though. Which is why they do it.

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  • baltakatei@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Industrial cooling is all about evaporating some liquid into gas. For evaporative coolers, that liquid is water and works best if the air is dry and water is plentiful (the absurd part). If you don’t have water or the air is so humid that evaporation is difficult, the liquid is expensive refrigerant which must recycle back into liquid in a closed loop with a gas compressor that pumps the waste heat into the air through forced convection heat exchangers (big fans blowing air past hot refrigerant-filled pipes), all of which consumes a lot of energy.

    Ideally, we’d live in a post scarcity society in which huge arrays if solar panels would provide electricity to run closed-loop refrigerant plants that would consume zero water to cool our data centers.

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    • UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Vapor chamber with the river.

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  • pressanykeynow@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There’s only one obvious answer to that question in a capitalism world. Because it’s cheaper than other places. Why is it cheaper for the corporations in the driest places where common people need to stop using showers is also obvious.

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    • UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Less regulations also

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  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Because that usually means it’s hot and sunny so things grow well if you can get water to it.

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• excral@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The priorities are completly screwd up. If they found a way to power the AI datacenters with humans, Matrix style, would they ask Texans to sacrifice their first borns to do so?

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  • derry@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Narrator voice: in fact that is what they did

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• sugarfoot00@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Stoopid Texans. You’ve got the guns, start using the things. If they need cooling, maybe aerate a few blocks of servers for them.

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• Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  its funny how these AI centers are mostly if not all in red states only, simply because they know the legislation wont do anything, and encourage them anyways, plus the resident that leans right are less likely to make a big fuss over it.

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• UncleGrandPa@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  So not only are Corporations… People

  Now they are more important people than regular citizens?

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• unconsequential@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Why aren’t they building these things underground or repurposing old mines in areas where geothermal is plentiful for power and aquifers are stable, instead of in water-poor, temperature extreme places like Texas and KY? …Oh right, poverty and red voters. Better to exploit and damage then have some upfront cost and long-term stability. I forget.

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• s@piefed.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Don’t feed the people but we feed the machines

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• brachiosaurus@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  You should complain whenever million gallons of water are wasted by corporations seeking profits or by governments for their shady operations. Not just when it’s about AI.

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center

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• sexy_peach@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It’s hilarious that so many people see Americans as free people

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• qyron@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  How much time before someone figures these infrastructures make very good targets for vandalism? I risk I will see datacenters destroyed by mobs and other actors before I die.

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• Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Actual interesting question:

  How much energy and resources would we save by simply slowing down AI response time? A lot of the time you get an instant response from an LLM, and sure, it looks impressive, but most of the time you don’t need it that urgently.

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• JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  My country is int he middle of a data center boom, fuelled by the usual royal and political, uh, inputs. We also have seasonal droughts, which often result in water rationing and angry people upset at the mismanagement of our resources. Wonder which will give way first.

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• SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Talk about dystopian headlines

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• Hikuro93@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well, I mean…Not for nothing, but Texas being one of the reddest states there is, and even being willing to double it down by heavily gerrymandering themselves for Trump worship, means that they did vote to serve their deep state and oligarch overlords. Which is quite ironic for the small government party.

  But then again, irony is in their DNA, starting with all their preaching about “keeping kids safe”. Speaking of which, Trump files where? I need to check if Epstein’s name comes up in those.

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• haloduder@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Seems like the real problem is that companies aren’t being charged enough for their excessive water usage.

  It’s no surprise this is happening in the Land of Useful Idiots and Dipshits, texas.

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• WalterLego@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  They deregulated shower heads just in time.

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• psx_crab@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Why can’t they use the shit and piss water to cool their shit instead of asking people to cut back on water usage?

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• rumba@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  WTF don’t they just use a closed geothermal loop?

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• JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Oh, and THEN, the AI will ask you to go take a shower if you’re feeling dry, dirty or thirsty. I mean after telling you why taking a shower is good, why people take showers, which celebrities took showers the past week and asks if you want to ads taking a shower to next week’s reminders.

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