A closer look
Generative artificial intelligence data centers consume an astronomical amount of fresh water to operate their evaporative cooling towers and prevent high-performance processors from melting down. Training a single massive language model can easily evaporate hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, meaning that every time you generate a whimsical image or ask an AI to write a mediocre email, you are essentially pouring a bottle of water directly onto a server rack. We have managed to invent a seemingly magical digital brain that possesses all of human knowledge, but we are paying for its computational parlor tricks by rapidly draining local reservoirs. Nothing says futuristic progress like trading actual drinking water for a mathematically predicted recipe for banana bread
