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If you think farms are for food wait till you find out what 40% of US corn is used for.
(it's biofuel for cars)
and just wait till you find out what 60% of the remaining corn is used for
(it's animal feed)
edit: and just wait till you find out how much water is used to artificially irrigate that corn
(something like 40 times as much as AI is estimated to use)
relevant Hank Green video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc
Basically my (and from what I remember, his) point is, stop thinking water use is the problem with AI datacenters. Even power use isn't the problem. We have all the technology and solutions necessary to build all this compute responsibly and sustainably, it's more than doable, it wouldn't even be particularly difficult.
The problem is hyperscaling and the lack of regulation (or straight up ignored regulation) that enables it, and the greedy people and corrupt politicians that want it to happen and let it happen. This is yet another thing that basically no other country in the world has real problems with besides the US of A, because in no other country is the shit your datacenters are doing legal. By barking up the wrong tree you are delaying the realisation that the problem is in your system and nowhere else.
This is yet another thing that basically no other country in the world has real problems with besides the US of A
USA companies are trying to export their brand of lawlessness to other countries. Just ignore the regulations, pay a fine, if they can't kill it in court, and carry on.
Yup. Water cooling is a closed circuit (unless you shit money or have a near unlimited supply, like with a river nearby). We've been water-cooling all kinds of shit in data centers and production plants forever. In fact, direct water cooling is more efficient than traditional AC, because you don't need to blow a bunch of air around, you just apply cold water to the hot parts, and cool the water back down afterwards. Sensitive stuff uses deionised water anyway, but I don't know if they care enough for DCs. That is kind of expensive to produce and maintain, you really try to avoid larger leaks and spills.
There are plenty of issues with the datacenters, from the bullshit on-site gas turbines to noise pollution to using up the world's RAM supply to the whole replacing humans with "AI" issue. But all of those could be solved with proper regulation.
Almond farming in the US uses a significant amount of water too. Like yes, it's for food, but the Almond farming in California uses more water than the cities of LA and SF combined.
Still less H2O intensive than meat production.
I would also add Alfalfa and Nestle (bottled 2$ water to the list. Really though “technology connections” says if you took the corn for ethanol and replaced it with solar you could power all the electric cars. (I could be misremembering)
According to the numbers I found above, almond is pretty comparable to meat production in terms of water intensity. The only thing saving it is that there is a lot less almond production than meat production.
Growing food to feed animals in an elaborate scheme to torture, exploit and then eat is truly one of humanities achievement
Is that water stat at the end right? jfc
Yup, American agricultures water usage ist notoriously inefficient, simply opening a valve and letting the water run down a slope to irrigate the area vs watering the plants. Also, the water pipes in the USA lose a lot more to leaks than Data centers could ever use.
The data centers are literally using portable turbine generators that produce wayyy more pollution than all of the cars we drive, yet somehow the epa cares more about putting 0w8 oil in my car to save 1 mpg in a year that can cause my engine to blow up. The data centers warm the neighborhoods by 2°C and will cause the elderly and people to develop more respiratory problems. They actually put these data centers in people's backyards by getting local permits to bypass the epa, even though it's illegal and then nothing is done because they have their feet dug in.
Don't forget about water. Why's every conversation about water? The things you're describing are way worse than water consumption levels
Just because datacenters are terrible with questionable use, doesn't mean that combustion engine cars aren't really bad either. Especially in urban areas traffic is causing a massive decrease in air quality and as a consequence are certainly the cause for respiratorial issues. It can't happen soon enough to relegate these cars into museums. But of course, EVs are just solving the engine emission problem, they don't solvbe all the other issues cars bring with them.
Don't forget the NDAs politicians sign so it can be done in secret and they can't answer to anyone.
Food bubble is going to pop any day now.
Tbf they tried with Soylent, right?
maybe they meant meat farms. meat uses more water than apparently anyone realizes or cares about. theres material to that reality, whether its acknowledged or not.
I think almonds use an inordinate amount of water.
Less than meat. But don't just take my word for it: CA-Ag-Water-Use.pdf https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CA-Ag-Water-Use.pdf
If I look at German sources almonds and beef/pork have the following overall water demand for 1 kg product:
Almonds: 10000-15000 L/kg, beef: 15400 L/kg, pork needs apparently half of beef
That does not necessarily sound like "less than meat". Granted almonds are among the most water consuming plants. Potatoes need only 290 L/kg.
https://berlin.nabu.de/umwelt-und-ressourcen/oekologisch-leben/essen-und-trinken/32632.html https://www.landwirtschaft.de/umwelt/natur/wasser/wasserfussabdruck-wie-viel-wasser-steckt-in-landwirtschaftlichen-produkten
It's actually insane how much water almonds use. But we'd rather do that and use water to maintain golf courses in Arizona than think about boring things like crops and food.
We don't need these datacentres.
We also don't need to be growing alfalfa in the nevada desert
Though i agree that especially some US states push crops and setups that aren't at all suited for their environment, use more water than they have.
Edit: right, and the corn thing.
Animal exploitation is not necessary though, and with only growing the plants for Humans, instead of also growing for non-human animals bred into existence to be killed, farms would use significantly less water.
Also, maybe we don't need to grow almonds in the middle of a desert.
On the other hand, not being a farmer admittedly, I'd assume there's some reason the almonds are grown there of all places rather than somewhere with cheaper water, is the climate good for them there or something, water consumption aside?
The climate is great. Historically they have been grown in similar areas. And don't forget the cheap migrant labor.
Keep in mind that datacenters are pretty cool and can definitely serve the public without causing much of a problem. The datacenters we don't want are the ones that are used to train and run LLM, as well as the ones that take power from homes and destroy the environment. There's a big difference.
I don’t think you understand who data centers serve.
They monetize us and serve profits to their owners.
No, you're not understanding that there are other types of datacenters.
A datacenter is a building with a lot of computers. Not all of them are AI related, and in fact most aren't.
Easily more than 90% of everything on the Internet and all telecommunications runs out of a datacenter.
The thing people are currently, rightly, being opposed to are hyper scale data centers. Those tend to be filled with things like AI training or massive web services where all the pieces need to be close to each other to work efficiently.
Most data centers are similar in size and environmental impact to a shipping warehouse, but with power consumption a fair bit higher.
Any midsize city will have at least a few, if for no other reason than to handle telecommunications, and many businesses will have their own small one near their offices.
Everything in a capitalist society serves profit to its owners. That doesn't mean it doesn't serve a good we want to have around. It'd certainly be better and more efficient if my local telecom hub or hospital were publicly owned and managed with a service motive above a profit motive, but they're not and I'd rather have both than not.
What I don't need is open AI building a datacenter 32 times larger than the hospital and 128 times larger the the telecom hub to train AI models, fuck up the water and double my power bill.
Where do you think your Lemmy instance is hosted? How do you think your call gets router when you call your mom?
How do you think our call gets routed when we call your mom?
That's just called a business.
I happily rent a server so I can serve the thousands of users that interact with the FOSS project I'm part of.
Not even going to mention golf courses, huh?
If you think data centers are useful wait until unit you find out about mixed-use multi-residential zoning.
I imagine a dystopia on which the AI is sentient, and forcing humans to keep its maintenance, by demanding water and minerals.
I guess Lauren can try eating microchips
Golf courses
I mean yeah but like... Agriculture.