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this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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To be fair, the article linked this idiotic one about OpenAI's "thirsty" data centers, where they talk about water "consumption" of cooling cycles.. which are typically closed-loop systems.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/chatgpt-ai-water-consumption
They are typically closed-loop for home computers. Datacenters are a different beast and a fair amount of open-loop systems seem to be in place.
But even then, is the water truly consumed? Does it get contaminated with something like the cooling water of a nuclear power plant? Or does the water just get warm and then either be pumped into a water body somewhere or ideally reused to heat homes?
There's loads of problems with the energy consumption of AI, but I don't think the water consumption is such a huge problem? Hopefully, anyway.
In addition to all the other comments, pumping warm water into natural bodies of water can also be bad for the environment.
i know of one nuclear powerplant that does this and it's pretty bad for the coral population there.