no you are right for adding it to every ai post as it doesn't get talked about nearly enough. it is causing the world to blow past its emissions reduction targets. the positive climate and environmental gains of adding renewable energy production to energy grids is, in some places, being lost to these hyperscale data centres sucking up the juice and preventing fossil fuel generators from being decommissioned as planned. of course this is also driving up people's electric bills.
and its water use is a much bigger deal than people realize within the broader context of climate change and how its expected that glaciers (one of the main sources of freshwater on the planet) will be basically gone by 2100 which will cause insane damage to ecosystems, agriculture, economies, and drinking water across entire continents. (and this wasted water use doesn't just apply to data centres necessarily either. the industrial use of freshwater is something that needs to be seriously considered and heavily regulated.)
we're being incredibly stupid. and while it would be bad no matter what, we could at least have an excuse if we were using this energy and water for something actually useful or helpful but this generative ai shit is no different than lighting vital resources on fire just to watch them burn. its short-sighted and suicidal.
this is why we need economic democracy! because otherwise fascist billionaires completely disconnected from reality with fucked up dystopian ideologies and backwards belief systems control the use of the world's resources.
