Two Hollywood Phonies (@autumn)

So listen. I'm not a huge AI is the future bro! type person.

But surely the people yelling about AI using a lot of water realize that it's mostly a closed loop? They're not just pumping fresh water into the system from the water supply, running it through once, and dumping it straight into the sewers.

That's not at all how that works.

@krutonium wait what ? are people making water powered datacenters or something or is this something people are just making up

@sneexy @krutonium water for the sake of cooling them lol

@autumn @krutonium OHHHHH that makes sense . why are people complaining everyone is doing water cooling or whatever

@sneexy @autumn Most of them seem to assume that it's like, the most open of loops, when it couldn't be further from the truth.

water based cooling that pulls in naturally cool water from a lake or ocean and then dumps the warm water back into it can do weird things to the environment. not always bad, but often bad.

and when data centers use tap water for cooling, it can raise utility prices and reduce availability, especially if the data center is in a hot dry place that already has water availability issues (which many of them are).

but yeah, it's not like they're erasing the water from existence. almost nothing does that - and most water use gets cycled back into aquifers at some point. it's just a matter of how long that takes, the rates of use and replenishment in each area, and how any given use of water impacts that.

i live in a place with plentiful fresh water, and i don't really judge Lawn Guys out here who spend a lot of water keeping their grass green and nice. i think it's a silly hobby, and would prefer they just let local plants grow instead, but i'm not concerned their watering is wasteful to the point of immorality. i do feel that way about Lawn Guys who live in warmer, dryer places than here, where water scarcity is a real problem though.

@deafhobbit @sneexy @autumn I don't disagree with you there, though it depends on exactly what body of water you end up heating. I forget which European country it is that heats a bay because they have so much excess geothermal, but it's a refuge over the winter for a lot of animals.

I also think they really should focus on building DC's in places with excessively extra water, or on coasts with desalinization plants, but like...