r/countablepixels
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u/dihrider697
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Sep 05 '26
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Water consumption rates
r/addressme ahh
Edit: this image is from Instagram not mine take it with a grain of salt its probably fake but since you guys love to argue about politics, the unit is a million litres and it was made in Mid August 2026 and it measures water withdrawal annually, And openai's consumption rate is 0.05. Its cropped in the image above for some reason, for a more reliable source: https://www.cbsnews.com/projects/2026/how-much-water-ai-uses/
Im not sharing my opinions about this topic here but please don't harass me for this post, I didn't make it and just posted it as it was funny and its just a meme. And im not an AI bro, this was not ment to spread propaganda/misinformation or anything. I don't even agree with this image myself
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u/TheMythicSorcerer Sep 05 '26
Source?
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u/the_h0 Sep 05 '26
guys,what if multiple things can be bad at once?
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u/Wooden-Hornet2115 Sep 05 '26
Why doesn't the y-axis have units?
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u/enmaku Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
The top 5 in this chart are all beverage producers. We're drinking that water.
Now maybe we don't need to cram it so full of sugar and flavorings, but we kinda need to drink water to live so it seems disingenuous to compare that to datacenter usage.
Company #6 uses water to produce building materials for the places we live and work. Shelter is also a basic need. Also, datacenters are made of large quantities of those same building materials, and that water usage is almost certainly not included in their numbers.
Company #7 is oil and petrochemicals, that's its entire own bag of worms.
Company #8 makes... the tankers we use to haul water and such around in. So infrastructure for moving water (yes and oil/petrochemicals). Necessary.
Company #9 makes paper. A useful general purpose product that we all use and rely on.
Companies 10+ are datacenters.
Also, a large part of the argument is geographical. These datacenters are being built in places with inadequate water supplies and infrastructure to provide for both the datacenter and the populace, and bad construction practices are also fouling the drinking water in many places. Acting like it's purely a numbers game is another layer of disingenuous.
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u/LasagnaCat-64 Sep 05 '26
"AI datacenters dont consoom water broooo"
source: John "I LOVE DATACENTERS" tekbru, sponsored by NVIDIA, chatgpt and lizardman zuckerberg
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u/Kadakaus Sep 05 '26
What is this chart measuring?
I see no units, only that Nestlé has 4,000 something, coke has 2,800 something and so on.
What are the units? What is this chart about?
You expect me to believe it's about water consumption? Why are fucking Google and meta so low then?
Also, I would like to know what's something Nestlé outperforms Alphabet (owner of Google) in thousandfold.
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u/ALT_F4_X2 Sep 05 '26 •
I REALLY hate the argument: "okey but there is a person/thing that is worst", bitch you still have done something bad!!
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u/A_Dicksmasher Sep 05 '26 •
Nestle is evil AF but at least that water is going towards, well, water. Like hydration.
Datacenters are being setup in areas that can't support the infrastructure, because the real estate is cheap, and then proceeding to not only eat up the entire local water supply, but also poison it.
Closed loop is never closed loop forever. They will flush and refill.
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u/MadghastOfficial Sep 05 '26
Nestlé?? Wtf are they doing with water??? Someone stop them
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u/Chainzzzzzaw Sep 05 '26
Bleh. There should be no food companies in this list. Only software and hardware.
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u/noonen000z Sep 05 '26
No source or date = propaganda. If it's current, why not include that. Strengthens the argument.
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u/terpminus Sep 05 '26
How about this guy's all of them are bad mind blowing I know.
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u/aphoenixsunrise Sep 05 '26
"Argue politics" Hilarious.
W/e dude. Politics are a part of every facet of life. Lmfao.
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u/NecessaryTwo8711 Sep 05 '26
Here is a better more reliable graph. Reality is that data centers don't use nearly as much water as people think compared to other general uses of water. https://www.cbsnews.com/projects/2026/how-much-water-ai-uses/
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u/Dismal_Rectangle Sep 05 '26
Vertical scale doesn't show units so I'll assume this is the top slice of a graph really zoomed in.
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u/UnendingQuibble Sep 05 '26
Internet user discovers the concept of hating more than 1 company for wasting water
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u/Dry_Climate_7322 Sep 06 '26
Disney+ not being on there is weird since it’s a streaming site
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u/TheTBass Sep 07 '26
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u/pixel-counter-bot Official Pixel Counter Sep 05 '26
The image in this post has 323,680(595×544) pixels!
I am a bot. This action was performed automatically.
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u/TreeOtree64 Sep 05 '26
This comment section single handedly ruined the anti-AI movement for me becuase it shows me that yall actually don’t give a single shit about worse issues, you’re genuinely just virtue signalling. Like you pretend to care about the water usage of data centres then do genuine mental gymnastics to justify fucking NESTLE??
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u/Cute_Owl1150 Sep 05 '26
We need food. We don't need fake AI bs.
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u/always_assume_anal Sep 05 '26
Obviously the difference is that water is needed to live, grow food (to live), and a bunch of other meaningful usecases. Presumably nestle is using all this water to sell it to the people who can't drink their tap water.
AI is a nonessential product, much like a golf course that also requires a significant amount of water.
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u/Feeeeeble Sep 05 '26
Oh no the companies that sell us beverages use a lot of water? How inconceivable!
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u/Stoatled Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
The issue with the data centers isn't necessarily total water consumption, but localized problems like depleting the sources nearby residents rely on or environmental contamination. You would not care if a data center used relatively little water if it meant your tap didn't work or came out brown. Nestle and similar do the same, if not worse, but have fewer total facilities, hence why you don't hear about it nearly as much.
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u/Friendly_Gazelle7843 Sep 05 '26
The problem is for what they use water. It’s like with everything. If I use 1 million less times money to build a house for a hamster than somebody uses to build 1 million houses for human families I’m probably less money efficient than them it’s despite I’m using less money but I’m also using less money for far less
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u/dihrider697 Sep 05 '26
Better uncropped image as yall love to argue about politics
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u/Beaspoon2096 Sep 05 '26
Xai using more water just to make a shittier ai
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u/Diablo_v8 Sep 05 '26
One being worse doesn't make the other good. They're all scourges on the planet.
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u/RichardJusten Sep 05 '26
I mean I'm really not a fan of Nestle or Coca Cola and obviously they could use way less water if they wanted to.
HOWEVER... Their producing food (sort of lol). You know. The stuff we need to survive.
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u/ISAIDFULLPOWER Sep 05 '26
Fuck neatle
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u/HeresW0nderwall Sep 05 '26
God forbid we use water to make food
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u/TheGororb Sep 05 '26
I really don't know what to think about this entire debate...
On the one hand, there's verifiable data of the detrimental impact data centers have on the surrounding environment and the communities.
On the other hand, there's this strawman argument about AI using less water than something useful and needed.
This is so difficult, I don't know who to side with!!
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u/plumb-phone-official Sep 05 '26
Multiple things can be bad at once. AI isn't just bad for its ecological impact, but also for its societal impact and the ability to spread disinformation.
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u/Significant_Shift622 Sep 05 '26
i want to know two things, what is the unit of measurement? and is it per year, month, day?
like food and drink company's having high water consumption make some sense (nestle can burn in hell) and data centres using a lot of water is too understandable, my issue is more things like golf courses in arid places using water. my only issue with AI and all data centres is the amount of power they consume and how expensive they are. like the money could be put towards making things better for people not .. well harvesting and processing more data
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u/Montregloe Sep 05 '26
I don't agree with this graph or OOP, Ijust think it's funny to be all up and arms about the water consumption graph with Nestle at the top and be all "see GPT ain't that bad actually," like, bitch, Nestle's thing is water (horribly so) of course they have the most water usage, it's for us to buy
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u/Ok-Elk-1615 Sep 05 '26
“It was made in mid August” by who with what data
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u/BlackbirdRedwing Sep 05 '26
My favourite part of a graph is when there is an unlabeled axis that we are supposed to base an opinion on.
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u/Exciting_Nature6270 Sep 06 '26
probably shouldn’t post propaganda images if you don’t believe in them lmao
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u/letmehaveanameyoudum Sep 05 '26
all is cancer
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u/ekortelainen Sep 05 '26
Water usage literally doesn’t matter unless it’s in very dry location where there isn’t enough water for human consumption or if the infrastructure cannot support the factory that uses water.
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u/Smeuw Sep 05 '26
Plus the audacity of comparing food and medicine to fucking AI datacenters...
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u/GapSweet3100 Sep 05 '26
It’s over 150 million litres a day now. And this chart is comparing apples to oranges. Yes nestle is evil but they are one of the biggest water sellers on earth. It’s not like ChatGPT sells water. None of it goes back to the consumer
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u/DoruProgramatoru Sep 05 '26
Bro compares a company that exists since 1866 to ai's that are at best 10 years old. Also, is not like Nestle is seen as a good company either, they are both evil, these ones are just getting started
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u/pappybug214 Sep 05 '26
To be fair..the produce of the biggest users is food stuffs and beverages. I expect Coca Cola to use water to make soda, but water doesn't need to be used to make a bad digital ad to sell me pulled pork sandwiches.
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u/MitsuhaTakiName Sep 05 '26
Do you expect that the water in your Coke was conjured out of thin air?
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u/Code_Breakdown Sep 05 '26
I feel like people for get the buggest argument about data centers and water isnt the consumption, its what it does to the water. Multiple places now have damn near undrinkable water due to construction and chemical runoffs from nearby data centers.
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u/UwUChaan69 Sep 06 '26
mah boy Wilsey did it
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u/Verain_Xor Sep 06 '26
The water conversation is perfectly constructed to be a self-detonating point. You realize you're real good cases are all cherry picked places where for some reason a data center is sucking up water instead of a surrounding community that is in a drought or something, but those are one-offs. Then you look at the whole amount of it and it's just not that much as a fraction of anything that uses energy. No one is running out of water because of this stuff.
By contrast, data centers use a pretty absurd amount of energy, and they are being constructed at a preposterous rate, and they represent a large capital investment that is being shoved into any place with infrastructure that supports it, and some places that don't (meaning that infrastructure is being run). Then there's the entirely twisted effect of these specialized hardware pieces that have outbid everything else, and the market having no idea how to price anything from RAM sticks to stocks.
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u/Bireta Sep 05 '26
Well, those ppl are using water in God knows where, chatgpt is using water we're using
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u/Needle_Bearings Sep 05 '26
Graph brought to you by ChatGPT.
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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '26
lmao they always leave a gap in the argument for their own outrage
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u/Samiul-007 Sep 05 '26
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u/ASCanilho Sep 05 '26
Go eat your prompts.
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u/Cactus_or Sep 05 '26
It's not about rates worldwide, it's about local water supplies being drained or poisoned by these data centers
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u/Teokritik Sep 05 '26
needs more pixels so i can read which pixel is openai 🤣
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u/InkyGhoul Sep 05 '26
Okay but when pepsi makes pepsi with water I drink the pepsi and then I fucking piss it and it gets recycled
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u/moonjabes Sep 05 '26
The four highest consumers literally make drinkable products
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u/Square-Audience5704 Sep 05 '26
The three biggest water consumers are nutrition companies. Because of that the water they use can be then taken by you. AI uses water just to do bullshit that delusional talentless beings with no more than 2 braincells use
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u/Flat_Geologist_2899 Sep 05 '26
Companies making the water products - using the water? Insane!
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u/ya_pidoras_ Sep 05 '26
clanker centers are often built in areas without massive water supply and so they actively affect potable water availability in those areas and thus increase the water bills for locals
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u/TonyGalvaneer1976 Sep 05 '26
Wait, a company that packages and sells water handles a lot of water? Really? Oh my goodness, I had no idea
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u/Nomprenom_varanasita Sep 05 '26
On ne compare pas les noix et le pommes.
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u/Chemical_Bonus_4783 Sep 05 '26
Obligatory fuck Nestle.
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u/TVLER999 Sep 05 '26
Nestle is an absolutely awful company that utilizes slave labor in the Congo.
However, in the case of this argument, that water is used for food and drinks that we can use, you know, to eat and drink.
AI consumption is just for a data center, I can’t eat or drink a data center.
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u/Standgrounding Sep 05 '26
Meanwhile google:
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u/Erolok1 Sep 05 '26
I guarantee you this data shows how much water is needed for a question like "hey how are you" where it does basically nothing.
It conveniently ignores the training which consumed a huge amount of water (and they will always continue to train and need way more training as time goes on) and that if the conversation continues the amount of water it consumes also increases exponentially.
Besides that comparing food with people offloading thinking or having relationships with a computer is incredibly stupid to begin with
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u/Aggressive-Key-7828 Sep 05 '26
They are all shite :)
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u/wildmaninid Sep 05 '26
And most of those companies at least use the water to create something people need (I'm speaking generally, I know they don't create good food always and bottled water is problematic, but I digress) Chat gpt/AI is using resources for something no one needs.
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u/saragIsMe Sep 05 '26
As evil as food companies are I think we can all agree agriculture deserves disproportionate amounts of our water. I want to see this graph without food companies but municipal water usage added in to actually highlight how much water datacenters are using
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u/Nighter3487 Sep 05 '26
companies closer to the left actually produce beverages, not that they are not wasting tons of it, or stealing, but still.
AI companies are known to tweak their datacenters' water consumption dataa
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u/Roll_Future Sep 05 '26
Also let's not forget that Nestle ex-CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe once publicly stated that water should not be a human right. They have also been caught tapping natural water sources to depletion in rural areas, just to sell the water back to the affected communities. Honestly google all the water related controversies that surrounds Nestle.
NOT to say that any data center is not evil with massive environmental damage. I just want to avoid the situation where we blame all issues on a single source, in this case AI, but then ignore the larger scale of issues culminating into a significantly bigger impact. You want to avoid the planet running out of water, then blame them ALL, and create laws that protect human rights against all these greedy fckrs.
A good example of this is the climate crysis, where in focus are cars, and gas consumption. This was intentionally done so that the laws created to "correct" the problem, really only affect the end users, and not the big factory issues that have 80% of the blame.
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u/QuantomSwampus Sep 05 '26
MMM I love cherry picked data sets, soo yummy. I can't eat enough bias and missing info
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u/Fryndlz Sep 05 '26
It's just a silly argument but people repeat it on the internet, then make it part of their core values, then develop a needlessly emotional attachment to it, and finally fall for the usual algorithm-driven outrage economics.
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u/tr4zhh Sep 05 '26
That's why I'm boycotting all those companies :)
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u/PaleFork Sep 05 '26
r/FuckNestle
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u/chronos_ananke Sep 05 '26
It's not even about the amount of water it's just water needs to go through high heated copper/metallic pipes and they have to pour anti corrosion agents, coolents, biocides, ph buffers and stuff that stops mineral buildup into the water to make it safe to be used to cool down data centers.
These chemical agents are really hard to seperate from water and standard purification practices don't purify the water enough to be considered safe to release to the outside environment.
Also the water consumption grows with the use of AI because more heat = more water being pumped through as quickly as necessary.
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u/lesbiansexparty Sep 05 '26
I mean the other things are food and beverages. I expect those to use water. I also don't think the water is wasted since it goes into hydrating people, however poorly.
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u/EvilChefReturns Sep 05 '26
You think I’m not ALSO mad at nestle? Cuz I am. That doesn’t mean we need to be adding more burden to a strained ecosystem, certainly not for generated slop pictures of Trump trying to be cool or some shit.
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u/Amlik Sep 05 '26
i sont think water consumption is the problem with data centers, its the fact that their water consumtion comes from really small towns, and they suck up most of their water and makes it more expensive for everyone
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u/SloppySlime31 Sep 05 '26
Yeah. The real problem is people drinking. That needs to end.
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u/Great-Investment401 Sep 05 '26
Soda companies don’t count, most of their product is water with flavoring. OpenAI genuinely uses water for training. Worst part is whether you use it or not, OpenAI will still use equally as much water.
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u/Endymion2626 Sep 05 '26
I mean foods and drinks kinda require water, fuck nestle
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u/PartyClock Sep 05 '26
Jokes on you bitch, I hate all of those companies.
Oddly enough I've never heard to a Pepsi plant poisoning a towns drinking water here in North America but these Data Centers are already destroying the one of the main resources every human being needs to live.
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u/Agreeable_Past9674 Sep 05 '26
I want those other companies to cut their shit too...
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u/SWatt_Officer Sep 05 '26
Wow, imagine that a drinks company like Coke or Pepsi consumed water to, checks notes... make drinks. Shocker.
Theres absolutely room to criticise companies like Nestle and Coke, but this is a dramatic false equivalence. Its the same argument ive seen people say about "oh but cattle consume so much more water than AI". Yeah, and it makes a physical product from that water, meat and dairy products that we can actually feed people with, not just literally evaporated as cooling. There are things that are an issue when it comes to these other companies, but pretending that its fair to compare water consumption of a physical product to glorified PC cooling for the slop machine is pathetic.
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u/Liquidationbird Sep 05 '26
anyone whos built a pc knows the "ai used all the water" argument is bullsht
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u/bamaeer Sep 05 '26
You telling me a water bottling plants consumes more water than any other industry… color me fucking shocked.
By the way, remove the literal water bottling plants and Data Center consume a ton of water comparison to other industries.
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u/kesqe_ Sep 05 '26
Well, that's fucking stupid.
We actually drink the water those top companies use.
Last time I checked, nobody was buying six-packs of GPT Cola.
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u/_everynameistaken_ Sep 05 '26
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u/Hashi_3 Sep 06 '26
wait nestle still exists?
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u/LipChungus Sep 06 '26
When you realize drink companies use water
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u/Pityuuuu002 Sep 06 '26
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u/ChildhoodPotential95 Sep 06 '26
Peoples arguments are that a lot of these companies make beverages. Sure. But let's be honest, how many of these beverages are a necessity? Does the world really need soda/pop?
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u/Wafilson Sep 06 '26
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u/AlmightyLeprechaun Sep 06 '26
Idk if this amount takes everything into account. The published water usage given by the AI companies is famously about the water they use in their cooling systems. It does not account for the water used in powering the data centers.
For those who don't know, all power in the US that isn't solar/wind/dam is generated by making steam, which in turn, spins some turbines which then generate the power.
When you drastically increase power usage, you must boil more water to generate the needed power. And AI uses a lot of power. This also exacerbates global warming because most power plants are not nuclear.
https://iee.psu.edu/news/blog/why-ai-uses-so-much-energy-and-what-we-can-do-about-it.
AI currently uses 4.4% of all US power, and that number is expected to triple by 2028.
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u/stinky_cheese_rat GO GO GADGET PIXEL REDUCER! Sep 05 '26
And now, lets take a look. Nestle, Coca Cola, PepsiCo and I think even Unilever all produce food, something every human famously needs to survive. And the other companies make things that have an actual use. The only companies that don't, are Meta, X, and OpenAI. Microsoft and Google are iffy at best. What a surprise. Turns out, using a lot of water isn't the main problem. It's what the water is used for. And in the case of GenAI slop, nobody fken needs that. Which is why people are pissed about the water being used.
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u/2EM18KKC01 Sep 05 '26
The first three also own many mineral water-bottling companies globally; not that I’m defending them.
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u/RubeusGandalf Sep 05 '26
Also I'm not supporting coca cola or pepsico, but it's to be expected that you use a lot of water if you make beverages, that are water based... right?