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Question about AI (lemmy.world)

As I've said elsewhere, I'm a little older. I hear a lot about AI. I'm just trying to figure out what's "good" AI, what's "bad" and if there's even a difference. I do know that there's the whole stealing content to train AI bs going on, but is it deeper? Is there such a thing as good AI? Just trying to learn so I can be better person

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[-] lattrommi@lemmy.ml 11 points 4 days ago

This is a well thought out comment and I agree with most of what you have to say.

The part about data center and water use needs a caveat though. Some of them (but not all!) use a massive amount of water (a google dat a center in oregon was found to have used 25% of the local water supply) and wastewater that comes from the plant could potentially just be getting dumped into the water supply. Companies that are lax in what they do with waste water are what concerns a lot of people. It's a lot like how mining companies would leave behind tailings ponds, pits full of water filled with large amounts of toxic materials like lead and arsenic. Some companies are only using wast ewater to cool their systems though. Others use a closed-loop system which reuse the same water continuously and use much less water.

This article breaks it all down better than I could: https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275&item_id=130961

[-] riskable@programming.dev 2 points 3 days ago

Just want to point out that nearly all new data centers use closed loop water cooling. That only makes sense in very, very dry places in the world that also have extremely cheap water.

For example, cooling towers would make no sense in Florida because the ambient humidity is too high. Even though water is plentiful.

this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2026
26 points (93.3% liked)

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