AI is draining water from areas that need it most

The problem is that when enough places do this, like golf courses, the droughts drive everyone in the city to severe limitations while the AI's and enormous course lawns are kept watered.

Many data centers rely on evaporative cooling, or “swamp cooling,” where warm air is drawn through wet pads. Data centers typically evaporate about 80% of the water they draw, discharging 20% back to a wastewater treatment facility, according to Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside. Residential water usage, by comparison, loses just 10% to evaporation, discharging the other 90%, Ren said. (A spokesperson for Google said the company doesn’t have a standard percentage because any data center would see some variation based on factors like location, temperature and humidity.)

I’m also confused on how they are “consuming” the water. I’m guessing they aren’t closed loop like most later cooling, but are they just… using it till it evaporates? I legitimately don’t understand where this water goes that it’s just… gone?

I feel that although there are many issues with how machine learning/"AI" is being used, there isnt really as much of an environmental issue as we are led on to believe. Many will write about how AI consumes large amounts of energy, but will not mention how data centers only make 1-2% of energy consumption worldwide, and most data centers arent focusing fully on AI making the actual percentage of "worldwide energy used by AI" much much smaller.

Alex avila actually argued this very well in his newest video essay, even showing that much of this worry about AI energy use is backed by companies with stakes in energy.

Not throw away. It evaporates.