A new government illuminates the environmental impact of generative AI.
  • ExtantHuman@lemm.eeEnglish
    01·
    6 days ago

    I’ve never seen any of these articles explain what this means. How is generative AI “using up” water. When a search uses a liter or whatever of water, what is happening to this water?

    Every time that happens, a little more water is burned and a little more carbon is released.

    This is just nonsense that makes me think the author doesn’t know either.

    Water is often used in cooling servers. But it’s contained and reused. It doesn’t go anywhere, it’s the vehicle to move heat from the servers to wherever else. In a pipe. In a closed loop. All these doomsday AI articles act like water is being lost permanently due to the use of these servers. Even if the water was escaping the closed system…did no one pay attention to the water cycle unit in grade school?!

    • Cyv_@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/

      I found that article really informative, TLDR: a lot of water is recycled and recirculated yes but not all. Also they sometimes evaporate water for cooling, and eventually the water does need replaced. I think the concerns were mostly scale and water increasing in conductivity over time.

    • RoidingOldMan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      It’s not a sealed system like a personal computer uses. They’re on a huge huge scale. They use evaporation / cooling towers. But those lose a certain amount of water to evaporation which needs to be replaced regularly.