||| FROM THE COOL DOWN |||
At its current rate of growth, 26-48.5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent will fill the atmosphere, and 731 million to 1.125 billion cubic meters of water will be used up every year. This would be like adding five to 10 million vehicles to roadways and having six to 10 million more people consuming water.
The AI boom — or bubble — is concerning because of its strain on resources and power grids.
Artificial intelligence is changing every sector of society, but its rapid growth comes with a real footprint in energy, water, and carbon,
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Increasingly, the Orcasonian seems to be publishing introductions to articles that live behind paywalls.
On edit – this particular article finally came through, it wasn’t a paywall issue, it was a poorly-coded webpage issue, another browser resolved it.
For the data-center cognoscenti, be sure to read the scholarly Nature article on which the Cool Down article is based:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01681-y
Surprisingly, it is NOT behind a paywall, as most Nature articles are.
Here’s the abstract of the Nature article:
The rapidly increasing demand for generative artificial intelligence (AI) models
requires extensive server installation with sustainability implications in terms of the
compound energy–water–climate impacts. Here we show that the deployment of AI
servers across the United States could generate an annual water footprint ranging
from 731 to 1,125 million m and additional annual carbon emissions from 24 to 44 Mt
CO -equivalent between 2024 and 2030, depending on the scale of expansion. Other
factors, such as industry efficiency initiatives, grid decarbonization rates and the
spatial distribution of server locations within the United States, drive deep
uncertainties in the estimated water and carbon footprints. We show that the AI
server industry is unlikely to meet its net-zero aspirations by 2030 without
substantial reliance on highly uncertain carbon offset and water restoration
mechanisms. Although best practices may reduce emissions and water footprints by
up to 73% and 86%, respectively, their effectiveness is constrained by current energy
infrastructure limitations. These findings underscore the urgency of accelerating the
energy transition and point to the need for AI companies to harness the clean energy
potential of Midwestern states. Coordinating efforts of private actors and regulatory
interventions would ensure the competitive and sustainable development of the AI
sector.
“Sustainable development of the AI sector”? They talk about the water and emissions, but completely ignore the massive materials footprint (mining, mining, and more mining, can you say MINING?) and the disruption to communities, and of course the disruption to our mind and the fabric of our societies. AI is not and never can be “sustainable”. My fervent hope is that the AI bubble bursts SOON.
Interesting paper dropped last week on the materials cost of AI models.
“From FLOPs to Footprints: The Resource Cost of Artificial Intelligence“
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.04142
What are people using AI for? This new report from Collective Shout shows that people are using it to turn women and girls into porn. Their findings include:
* Users can digitally undress women and girls for free, and in seconds
* Undressing tech doesn’t only create nude images, it can turn women and girls into hardcore porn
* Some sites facilitate creation of extreme violent content depicting women and girls being sexually tortured, as well as child sexual abuse material
* Users’ pornographic creations can be posted to public online galleries, compounding victims’ trauma
https://www.collectiveshout.org/new-research-nudifying-apps
Don’t ever fall for the techbro psychopaths’ stories that AI will “help the world”. It will not. It is not. It is helping to destroy the environment, and destroy our societies.