The Biggest Lie About AI

as tech companies race to win the AI Revolution the amount of data centers that they are opening is growing exponentially this requires increasing amounts of fresh water and energy in 2023 alone Google used the equivalent of 1 18 of Lake athabaska to cool their data centers and Microsoft recently committed to restarting nuclear reactors like Three Mile Island the site of the 1978 partial nuclear meltdown to create enough energy for their growing amount of AI intensive data centers now there is a lot of talk right now about the future potential of AI I'm working on a

video about Google mind and Alpha fold's ability to create breakthrough medications and there's a ton of excitement and optimism in other spaces too but one thing we know for sure about AI right now is that Microsoft Tesla meta all these companies they're building massive amounts of data centers in order to power their AI systems in their race to monopolize artificial intelligence and this will have a huge impact on our futures AI technology relies on data centers that require so much energy that they get so hot that they need water pumped through them to be cooled

in order to function this is a Google data center those colorful pipes those aren't wires that's kind of what I thought initially those are pipes of Cold clean water which flow through the system keeping the technology from overheating in 2023 alone Microsoft data centers consumed 7.8 million cubic met of freshwat up 34% from the year before because of how many more data centers they were running to power their new AI Tech technology Pursuits the water that cools and cleans the technological systems needs to be free of impurities bacteria debris and dirt this is the reason

why these data centers rely on fresh water for cooling the water needs to be extremely clean therefore the water is taken from the same sources that we use to drink cook and wash with so how much water are you consuming every time you use an AI technology like chat GPT based on Microsoft's 2022 annual report on fresh water used for cooling system asking chat GPT 3 10 to 55 questions or prompts uses roughly 500 mL of fresh water I think this is important to know and remember that when you're using AI technology like chat GPT

there is an environmental impact it makes sense that we haven't really thought about this that much companies aren't talking about this as they expand their AI initiatives Amazon is planning to spend a hundred billion dollar in the next 10 years to build data centers around the world consuming massive amounts of energy and water in fact earlier this year they secured the approval to build two new data centers near Santiago Chile Santiago Chile I uh have been there once that's why I know how to say it so while is already a water stressed City so there

has been Mass protests and concern as people are wondering where this freshwat is going to come from cuz it's likely going to come from their personal freshwater sources in the DS Oregon I've never been there I don't know if it is pronounced DS Google has three data centers and one quarter of the city's water supply is being consumed by these three data centers and they're planning to build two more there has been a lack of Regulation and standards about knowing how much water these data centers are consuming cuz this is all quite new technology but

we are getting more transparency than ever before based on estimates from 2022 a midsize data center uses about 300,000 gallons of water a day equal to the water consumption of about 100,000 homes Microsoft recently announced it had signed a 20-year deal to purchase energy from the dormant 3M Island nuclear reactor the one that had a meltdown in the 1970s the reason was to create nuclear energy to power their growing need for data centers in their AI race now I am all for this I'm all for nuclear energy but this is only being used to power

data centers these nuclear reactors aren't being used to create energy for us this is all at of time when we're trying to figure out how to get energy that isn't going to be burning fossil fuels but again these nuclear reactors are just powering data centers but as stated earlier I do think that AI can be very important in specific Fields Alpha fold and AI system developed by Google deep mine won a Nobel Prize in chemistry because among other things it can predict and design protein structures this AI technology could see breakthroughs in our understanding of

disease create new medicines and all of this we would not be able to do without assistance of ai ai in theory can help Renewable Energy Systems become more efficient but at the same time one of our biggest issues as humanity is the climate crisis and water scarcity so we need to balance the pros and cons of AI right now as all of these companies sort of Skyrocket creat creting these data centers to make sure they don't do more harm than good I think this video is just about us understanding I'm back in school right now

doing my masters and lots of people are just using chat GPT all the time I think it's good for us to think about the water consumption that goes along with us using chat GPT in our day-to-day life I think we need to put pressure on these companies to figure out ways to maybe reuse this water or have the fresh water end up in productive places like on farms hopefully this video and public understanding and increased transparency around these data centers will help us understand how this AI Tech actually works if these data centers become powered

by renewable energy nuclear energy who knows it could create breakthroughs and Innovation this could be a good thing but this video was just about you and I understanding what's going on right now with these data centers thanks for watching us all these years we've been doing this for 12 years which is insanity for all you young ons out there do not ask how old we are hit that like And subscribe button I don't even know if that's still what people do and thanks for watching we will see you soon for a new science video I

see peace