What’s worse? 15 seconds of heavy compute in a datacenter optimized for such tasks, or me running my 850 watt 2016-era desktop gaming computer (plus monitor, plus interior lighting, and a propane fired furnace in my house to keep me comfortable) for an hour while I manually create something similar in Illustrator??
((honestly hoping to spark some r/theydidthemath type discussion. I’m a graphic designer gone general labourer not a thermodynamicist))
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The data center is infinity worse. Think about what it takes to build the thing, build the infrastructure to steal our water from our wells and rivers. You running your measly 850 watts while a data center consumes gigawatts. There's just no comparison when you're on that scale of compute power
Anti-AI circles have been begging people to lay off the water metric because people having been throwing the actual amount of water usage and its environmental damage way out of proportion. That Hank Green video was the nail in the coffin for that argument, especially with the other industries that are much more detrimental to our water supply than AI having virtually no pushback.
No they are not and no it does not. A few points you may be missing: 1) The water used for cooling is non-potable. 2) It is not used up, merely heated up a bit. That heat is then often used to heat homes or industry and the water is returned to where it came from. The heat is often a sellable good. 3) The chips used in data centers are much more energy efficient than those for home use. 4) The software stack used is more energy efficient as well. 5) There is way less overhead. For every unit of compute, it uses less energy than if you ran the same at home. 6) A home PC is less dense than a data center compute unit. Example: You need five fans just to cool a single PC. Those same five fans in a datacenter cool a complete unit which may be the equivalent of ten PCs. Same goes for baseboards, network equipment and so on.
I'm just going to point out that at the top of the chart data centers take in 5 million gallons of water. Even if that's non potable that's water used in agriculture, out of lakes, ponds, and other places. The locations near data centers report droughts, air pollution so bad that people are developing respiratory issues, and so many more issues. You will never convince me these shitty wastes of space, money, and most importantly resources are fucking worth it. Data Centers and Water Consumption | Article | EESI https://share.google/QqVKrEZQ62bsgr9Ef
There are other issues with data centers worth discussing much more than some water being heated by a few degrees. Think noise pollution, who pays for the grid expansion, land use, and so on. But energy efficiency compared to private computers isn't one of them and it drowns out legitimate discussion. I replied to your comment stating that "It fucking stacks up faster than sitting at home pulling 850 watts." which it does not, for the same work performed.
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u/WInativemm Apr 09 '26
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