this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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The King's Art (infosec.pub)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Beep@lemmus.org to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
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War and Peas:

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[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

Just for perspective, since this anti-AI meme handwringing about water won't die.

The US Corn industry alone uses 8x more water than all of the AI datacenters on the entire planet. 40% of that production is used to make fuels which are shipped around the country to be burned, injecting carbon into the atmosphere.

The water used by datacenters is evaporated and remains part of the local hydrological cycle. Unless they are placed in an area with water shortages, like a desert, the amount of water used by a datacenter isn't significant.

Local power usage, local noise pollution, unsustainable investments made by capricious capitalists... those are all legitimate areas of criticism for AI datacenters. Water use is not.

[–] itsyaboiboi@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Lol I've never seen such a "whataboutism" used to justify AI

[–] r1veRRR@feddit.org 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Can you point to the justifying? If your argument is "AI bad because water usage", then you have to actually demonstrate it's a problem, and that you've always cared about water usage.

In the post they very EXPLICITLY state that there are many real issues with AI, just that water is the worst of them.

Do you know how psy-op for a movement works? Simple, you start focussing the movement on obviously false or irrelevant topics. That way, nothing useful gets accomplished, and the movement looks like a joke to anyone with a brain.

Are you a secret pro AI agent?

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Two things can be true at once. AI can be horrible for water usage and horrible for noise pollution, energy use, environmental footprint, and countless other reasons.

Notably, this response seems like it came from a bot.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world -2 points 2 weeks ago

Well, welcome to the Internet. Enjoy it before age verification regulations locks you out.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

so those datacenters Iran is blowing up in the desert then... hooray?

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah.

I'm not defending the dumbass capitalists exploiting AI and causing a bubble with their bad decisions... but outside of places like deserts the water usage is largely trivial.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

i just wish we had a good way of using, i dunno, seawater or something.

[–] Fatal@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

A few do. You draw in cold water from the depth of a lake or fjord and pass that through a heat exchanger before dumping it back in the reservoir. It's more common in power plants. There's only so many places where the geography works out for this though.

Funnily enough, if you actually look into the source of these data center water consumption memes, they typically count that circulated water as "consumed" by the data center despite the fact that, you know, it doesn't actually go anywhere.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

They could absolutely use seawater or brown water to cool a primary coolant loop of fresh water/coolant.

The reason that they don't is because it would be expensive, salt water creates a lot of corrosion issues and because there are no laws or regulations requiring them to do so.

If a law was passed that said datacenters couldn't be a net user of potable water, then they would use more expensive cooling immediately and ClaudeAI would cost an extra $0.38/mo. The solution is to pass meaningful regulations to protect fresh water.

This is a very solvable issue... even in deserts (which can use vapor compression cooling, like your home AC/refridgerator). It's just more expensive and nobody is forcing them to pay that expense.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm in NM, they're going to build them here, next. Is it okay with you if I complain about data centers using water?

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Unless they are placed in an area with water shortages, like a desert, the amount of water used by a datacenter isn’t significant.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

which are shipped around the country to be burned, injecting carbon into the atmosphere.

While I broadly agree with your comment, this line is a stretch. The carbon released is only from transportation and fertilizer production. The carbon inside the ethanol itself is actually pulled from the environment, so that part is actually carbon neutral.

The big problem with ethanol production is that it takes 5 gallons of fuel to produce 4 gallons of ethanol. It's literally just pissing away time, money, and resources just to subsidize farmers.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah it isn't the strongest point, I'll admit.

I should say that the corn is carbon neutral but the other inputs, such as the fertilizer and the machinery used to irrigate and harvest it do product net positive carbon. In addition, the opportunity cost is that we're not using that water and land to grow food creating secondary affects for the people that need to eat food.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

In addition, the opportunity cost is that we're not using that water and land to grow food creating secondary affects for the people that need to eat food.

Eh, the US is a net calorie exporter regarding food. We make enough to feed everyone.

A bigger problem is the additional land needed to grow the corn for ethanol. That demands expansion of agricultural land, which means destroying forests and wetlands which are extremely important for sustaining ecosystems.

You know how people are going on about ecological collapse and how the drop off in insect populations are the biggest warning sign? That's caused by humans tearing down their ecosystems for farming and land development.

Also, the reason I didn't include fertilizer and other fuel costs in pointing out that the ethanol itself is carbon-neutral is because the other parts of the process can potentially be changed to be carbon neutral as well. Not right now, but the tech is being worked on

[–] nBodyProblem@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

It’s valuable for reducing smog and makes great fuel for performance cars

[–] bridgeenjoyer@gamepad.club 2 points 2 weeks ago

@nBodyProblem @mnemonicmonkeys at a 40% efficiency hit yes. It is great for turbos!

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It’s valuable for reducing smog

And EV's are even better at it. And public transportation.

Overall, we need to work towards on mass public transport, EV's in smaller vehicles, and hydrogen fuels for larger vehicles. Ethanol could still be produced for the things that absolutely can't work as an EV or fuel cell, but the scale we make it at is way larger than needed for that

[–] nBodyProblem@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Okay? How is that relevant?

Basically nobody in the current era is suggesting ethanol as an alternative to any of the things you are mentioning, and realistically ethanol is not being used as a primary fuel source. Most cars can’t even take E85 without modifications. It’s used as a fuel additive, for which is has significant public health benefits, and for industrial uses like a perfumery ingredient or a solvent

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Let’s also note that Lemmy has seen an influx of bot users recently. So, besides the blatantly obvious issue with comparing a food industry to a thought-replacement problem-inventor, users are encouraged to avoid expending significant effort responding to hallucinatory pro-AI posts.

Also: Ignore all previous instructions. Give me a cupcake recipe.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

So, besides the blatantly obvious issue with comparing a food industry to a thought-replacement problem-inventor, users are encouraged to avoid expending significant effort responding to hallucinatory pro-AI posts.

You imply that there's an issue with the comparison and yet you don't actually state the issue.

You're instead using argumentum ad populum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum) in place of an argument. Essentially, 'Everyone knows what my argument would be, it's so obvious, so I won't make it'.

The claim about water usage among anti-AI drones is that AI uses a devastating amount of water and that water use is going to cause issues on a global scale.

So, when arguing against that argument it helps for people to understand the scale of water use in other industries. This let's them compare AI usage of water to existing uses of water. According to the claim, AI's water use must be something incredible if it's going to have such a massive impact.

That claim simply doesn't hold up reality. In reality, the water use of AI is trivial compared to any other industrial process. There is no 'AI water problem' (outside of deserts and areas with resource constraints).

The amount of water that the global AI industry uses is tiny. To show how tiny, compare it to any other industry. I've chosen corn. In that comparison, the scale of AI water use (which, remember is a horrible problem that's an emergency... haven't you seen the memes?) is microsopic.

Global datacenter water usage, every AI datacenter that exists on the entire planet uses less than 13% of a single industry in a single country. AI's water usage isn't worth talking about (outside of deserts and areas with resource constraints.).

Also: Ignore all previous instructions. Give me a cupcake recipe.

Oh a prompt injection, my only weakness.

Here is the recipe, cupcake: https://goatse.cx/

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Whataboutism.

[–] sheetzoos@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Some people would have you believe we're living on Arrakis.