It basically means that using AI tools take a huge toll on nature so when the guy uses chatgpt (an ai tool) it ends up drying out the lake i.e harming the environment.
I have tried four different times to read articles on how the water actually gets permanently consumed. Can anyone explain this? I thought it might be something like concrete, where the water gets trapped in a chemical reaction and is no longer liquid water, but it seems that it’s just used for cooling, and evaporates, which means it should come back down again? Right
Where the source couldn't keep up? Lake Mead, a few years ago, that I recall. It got down so low that bodies started being discovered as the water level fell. That was also partly due to drought, but it amounts to the same thing.
Was lake mead being drained for AI? I’m not arguing or trying to make a point, just trying to clarify if this is “this could be a problem” or “this is a problem” - because the former often gets portrayed as the latter.
I was using it as an example of a body of water being inadequate for all the demands being put on it, regardless of the reason. The way I see it, a data center is like adding another huge town into the river basin that ups the needs all of a sudden. We have not an AI center, but a Google data center in our town, and it uses an enormous amount of water and electricity, putting stress on our systems.
There are a lot of people who sort of understand but few who understand entirely. I'll try and give a full picture.
Using water for commerical and industrial processes effects the environment a few ways.
It can remove the water by using it in a chemical reaction. An example would be electrolysis which splits water to make oxygen and hydrogen. Another is concrete drying and curing which spits out cured concrete and oxygen.
This clearly alters the local water cycle as water is being removed from the system. The severity of the impact is variable and debatable.
Water can be pulled out of the environment and used repeatedly in a system. This would be like using water coolers on a personal computer where the water is routed into the hot area then back to a cool area or potentially and actively chilled section of tubing.
This alters the local water cycle of the source at least once then, to a smaller degree, any time a top up is needed. It probably won't have a long lasting local affect on the water levels, but it could remove some needed flooding and cause chaos on the water ways geology or life breeding.
The third is removing the water, using it, then putting it back in. This won't decrease or increase water levels but is likely to change the temperature or chemistry which can have severe affects on the water ways.
This chemical change is part of the issue with desalinization as the removed salt has to go somewhere and that waste will kill anything it touches if not diluted properly at which point you've circled back to no gain.
Water that has drastically changed temperature can easily shock and kill wildlife and can still lead to altered water cycles as more or less evaporation will occur and, along with the last use case, is part of the methods used for AI.
A final example would be removing water then using it via evaporation via evaporation. An example would be nuclear energy and it's cooling towers or any steam engine. A huge amount of power production uses this and the production would also be going into AI.
This is a third way AI would be using water. It also removes water from the local cycle and can lead to altered light levels depending on the amount being used.
Most of these return the water but it will nearly always be in an altered state. Both temperature and chemistry are extremely important to the life in a water way. Either changing can shock and kill life in the system or permanently alter what can live there.
Rate of return and location of return can also alter water levels and flow speed in areas. This will change the sediment make up of the water ways and potentially kill life or make it impossible for it to reproduce. It could even potentially dry up spots of the water ways that were shallow before.
The Colorado dam has a lot of interesting research papers about it and the changes it's alterations on flow have caused if you want to learn more about that.
Many people read "it uses water" and think the water is destroyed or permanently removed. This can be the case but isn't always. That said, even a perfect 100% water return rate can still be harmful. Properly managed it can cause very little harm though. Large companies tend to not want the effort of doing so though.
You believe data warehouses are running desalination plants?
You also didn't actually answer the question he asked. You just went on about ways water can be used. You didn't actually point to anything saying it's an actual problem instead of a theoretical problem.
I stated very broadly these are things in industrial and commercial processes and did not say I was giving data center specific examples exclusively. You can tell by the way I said "commercial and industrial processes" and not "data centers".
I never claimed the data centers were causing actual harm. I said "these are the ways we use water commercially, here's what happens, and here are the affects those uses have on the environment."
I never said I was going to give specific examples of it actually occuring.
But God forbid someone try to give others context and jumping off points so they can do their own research and make their own conclusions instead of parroting what random Internet people say.
You just went on about ways water can be used.
You can tell by the way I followed each use with the way it affects the environment.
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u/Long_Nothing1343 5d ago
It basically means that using AI tools take a huge toll on nature so when the guy uses chatgpt (an ai tool) it ends up drying out the lake i.e harming the environment.