851
think of john shareholder
(lemmy.ml)
Capitalism
The AI cost of water isn't really a big deal in comparison to the consumption of water through crops and other means worldwide.
I heard the cost of water for AI worldwide is 1/80 the water consumption of corn in America alone.
What is a big deal is the money invested towards it is holding up our economy, (when it could be spent on making society better) creating fake news and impersonating humans at a rapid rate.
I also agree that water isnt the biggest issue. Power is dedinetly a genuine concern. AI uses so much power.
Repurposing the water would be good. Have the heated water heat people's homes for example, give something back to the community.
Instead they heat up the fish.
What drives me crazy about the use of water for datacenters is that it isn't necessary. Unlike growing crops where the water is a non-negotiable requirement of the endeavor just by its very nature, you can cool a datacentre without continuously consuming water.
It just so happens that by a completely insane series of circumstances it's the cheapest way to do so. You could run the servers in the datacenters at a lower power limit. You could use non-evaporative cooling. You could build the datacentre in a colder or less arid climate. But no, all of those options either cost slightly more or generate slightly less money, so they aren't even considered. Couple that with the fact that a significant proportion of that consumption is in service of prompts that no end user ever actively asked for, like the LLMs responses being generated many thousands of times per second by Google searches. It's just this utterly pointless pissing away of resources.
Most of the water use for corn isn't necessary either, because nearly half the corn we grow gets burned in engines in the form of corn ethanol mixed into gasoline.
I'll say that again because it is an unfathomable stat. Nearly half the corn the US grows gets burned to make cars go. That represents 40x the water use of AI if OP is to be believed about the 1/80th stat.
IIRC it depends on how you count it, if you are counting water use for hydro power then it uses shitloads. But places that use hydro usually have plenty of water to do that in the first place and any other datacentre would be the same, AI isn't special. Any kind of factory would also use a lot.
but AI is increasing the rate at whoch data centers are being built which is putting enormous strain on a lot of communities with aging or inadequate public infrastructure and utilities like water and electricity. Some people have seen water and/or electricity prices double or have even lost access to their public utilities because everything is being routed to a nearby datacenter thats younger than their kids. And in many instances politicians are ignoring the communities they're displacing because theres significant money involved.
Oh so now you care about displaced people when its impacting Americans?
I care about displaced people in general and stand in solidarity with all of the oppressed of the world. That includes many varieties of Americans including the indigenous people of North America who have been displaced and genocided by Euro-American colonialism and also rural and suburban Americans who are being run out of their communities for the sake of capital and profit. And my heart extends to those outside of the US from Palestine to Sudan to the Congo to every other corner of the Earth.
No no no, you see, that doesn't line up with their assumption that you are a filthy imperialist.
Remember kids, assume and accuse first, ask questions later!
Well I think the perspective on water is that a lot of these data centers aren't paying market price for water, and are leaving residents in the area with less water available
Thats a choice the local government is making and doesnt apply to every data center.
So? It's still impactful to human lives and is more directly tangible than abstract food costs
But it isn't an AI problem it's a government problem.
So if a coal plant was consuming vast resources and interfering with the populace, is that the coal plants fault or the government?
If there's a remote village somewhere that needs a steady supply of electricity and coal power is the only solution. Is that a bad thing because it's coal?
If a coal plant was then built in a place where the water supply was scarce and they government was like sure you can build that here whatever and then they did and suddenly the towns people had to start importing water bottles to meet the demand. Is that a coal problem or a government problem?
Also, the machine costs $500B/year to operate and generates less than $2B in gross revenue. So John Shareholder is going to need a multi-trillion dollar bailout in a year or two.
They are hoping to become profitable "soon".
I love big tech’s products after the startup funding designed to kill competition has been spent. It’s really the sweet spot where the product doesn’t function efficiently anymore AND it costs more than the original product or service it replaced AND any human workers involved are not protected as employees.
Now I just noticed how far fucking down those pants are.
Imagine the waddle🤣
But capitalists think it can let them eliminate jobs so we have to go all in no matter what
Profits over everything else is the goal of capitalism.
It's not even profitable though... At this point it seems it is just about control, like they would rather have a money pit then let independent workers, ie creatives, have any profit.
It is about the prospect of profit. If you can make a machine that puts everyone out of a job, the profit is literally infinite. The same or better productivity output with zero labour cost input. You would have to be out of your mind not to invest in the infinite money machine.
Unfortunately (fortunately?), the infinity money machine is not possible with LLMs. These bullshit generators are a dead end in AI tech. But nobody with investor money believes that yet.
If you put everyone put of a job then you get infinite money but an economic collapse that makes that money worthless.
I think most people would be happy if you took away their fake money (stonks) and replaced it with everything they needed to be happy
Idk I feel like rich people just like seeing big number get bigger.
For everyone else though couldn't be more true.
Actually could not agree more
Time magazine: let's make em person of the year!
Person of the Year is not an endorsement of their practices, it's really just whoever dominated the news cycle that year. Both Hitler and Stalin have been Person of the Year. Sometimes it's not even people, like "The Computer" in 1982.
Did you read the article? If its not endorsement its at least pandering.
ChatGPT is a child molester
Yeah, I think objectively the "A.I.'s" are kind of neat, like those old desktop pal cats kinda of neat, cost almost nothing to run. But A.I. costs such an extreme ammount of resources to run enitre cities could be run in its deficits alone. We do not have the energy, water, or computers to run it, but something is bankrolling it.
i dont hate ai it but should be limited AND MODERATED. WDYM İ CAN MANİPULATE A BOT AND ASK FOR A BOMB RECİPE FOR A “fiction”
I think ai can be useful and beneficial to the world if used correctly. This is not possible within the capitalist system however.
it's more of a tool that can read all the books at once, but it also doesn't know how to judge its contents, so the user will still need to judge what it said themselves and not blindly trust it. (You can also find books about making the same bombs)
Valencia AI has you covered.
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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