Microsoft expects its annual water consumption to reach 28B liters by 2030, up from 7.9B liters in 2020 and 10.4B liters in 2024

7 months ago by Jim East to c/fuck_ai

jaredwhite 41 points 7 months ago

Oh that's funny. I've been repeatedly told that AI is in fact negligible it comes to water usage.

Is it possible we were lied to, again? 🤣

path: 0 21837971, hotness: undefined, score: 41, children: 1
kungen 10 points 7 months ago

ChatGPT told me that their hallucinations are worth it, and outweighs their negligible environmental impact. I'm not smart enough to do the maths, but it sounds like no worries, boss!

path: 0 21837971 21844282, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 0
DarrinBrunner 22 points 7 months ago

If it needs to be fresh water, then they need to pay in full to build a desal plant for ocean water, and a solar farm to power it, to be owned and operated by the state. And, that plant needs to send half it's water to the local municipal water system at no cost.

Because fuck em.

path: 0 21837249, hotness: undefined, score: 22, children: 2
9bananas 1 point 7 months ago

having not looked into it at all: it probably doesn't "need" to be fresh water, but it'll probably be rivers anyways.

i assume it works similarly to other large scale cooling operations: you have a closed loop for the heat exchangers and the cooling towers are fed by a local source of flowing water.

doesn't need to be all that clean, or fresh water, but since rivers are pretty much the only source of moving water in most places, there's not really many other options. (for the cooling towers, not AI datacanters...they could just NOT build them, if they weren't fuckwits)

same as nuclear power plants, or any other industrial application that needs a lot of cooling!

path: 0 21837249 21854484, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
VieuxQueb 1 point 7 months ago

You don't understand if it's not clean freshwater it will mean cleaning and maintenance of the equipment. It's much cheaper to use clean freshwater.

path: 0 21837249 21854484 21855264, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
phil 10 points 7 months ago

Techbros got a bit too excited with Moore's law: they want everything they touch to grow exponentially. Specially money.

path: 0 21845498, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 0
mech 3 points 7 months ago path: 0 21854930, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
prole 3 points 7 months ago

Can someone explain to me why this needs to be potable water?

path: 0 21855595, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 3
draco_aeneus 4 points 7 months ago

It doesn't need to be potable, but since it's using evaporative cooling, it does need to be somewhat clean. You don't want to leave gunk all over your cooling equipment.

path: 0 21855595 21857758, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 2
prole 3 points 7 months ago

I mean you totally could leave gunk all over your cooling equipment, and then just have to clean it. It would just cost more money.

path: 0 21855595 21857758 21873736, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
draco_aeneus 1 point 7 months ago

Disclaimer: I have no knowledge of how these systems work. I'm basically just guessing

If the water is overly basic or acidic, and you concentrate it via evaporation, then you can damage the equipment at an accelerated pace. But even then, it's indeed a matter of money.

path: 0 21855595 21857758 21873736 21874163, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Gsus4 1 point 7 months ago

Is this evaporative cooling? Why cant they use it in closed loop?

path: 0 21844759, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2
mrgoosmoos 8 points 7 months ago

that costs more money

path: 0 21844759 21846840, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0
xvertigox 3 points 7 months ago
path: 0 21844759 21846511, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
bfg9k 1 point 7 months ago

Let's just skip to the end where we live on Rainworld after all the water has been evaporated into atmo

path: 0 21844972, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
vane 1 point 7 months ago

If only we knew if there is critical mass that can make it run away so we will end up like Mars.

path: 0 21844972 21846673, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
SoupBrick -3 points 7 months ago path: 0 21837624, hotness: undefined, score: -3, children: 3
mrgoosmoos 3 points 7 months ago

those numbers are inflated to fuck, or else the people studied for it are just wasteful as fuck

I take long showers often multiple times a day, wash a lot of stuff by hand, do a lot of garden watering, fill a kiddie pool when it's hot, and wash my hands very often. I still only reach a max of 60 gallons a day on average in the summer. typically half that in the winter. and I wfh so all my shitting is done at home, too.

who the fuck is flushing 15 gallons a day just by themself? and who the fuck is doing multiple loads of laundry every single day?

the incredibly low quality of that blog post pisses me off. garbage like that makes the world a worse place, and whoever published that should be ashamed of their work

path: 0 21837624 21847023, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
kungen 2 points 7 months ago

Copilot told me that they need fresh water to survive, just like us.

path: 0 21837624 21844335, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1
SoupBrick 1 point 7 months ago path: 0 21837624 21844335 21844922, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
fuck_ai
fuck_ai

@lemmy.world

login for more options
7994
4597
8702

"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"

A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.

AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.

go to feed...