The Passenger
3â5 minutes
Weâre all just along for the ride as we hurtle through space on this planet â a spinning rock that (I imagine) is currently shaking its head at us!
The ground keeps shifting, the social fabric is shredding and it feels like weâre sinking faster than the Titanic!
Am I the only one who feels like weâre trapped in a disaster movie?
A bad one.
Where theyâve blown all the budget on the computer generated special effects. The writers are having âcreative differencesâ and the directorâs lost the plot!
Now, itâs all starting to go a bit sci-fiâŠless Towering Inferno, moreâŠ.Terminator.
Itâs not just me thatâs feeling overwhelmedâŠeven our planet is struggling to keep up.
Think your life is out of balance? The Earth is, too! Humans have shifted so much water, ice, and soil around that the planetâs axis is wobblingâŠ.literally!
Weâve stripped forests and emptied aquifers, moving the Earthâs centre of gravity. And leaving us standing on a planet thatâs fighting to find its balance.
Well, I say âweââŠ.but itâs not really âusâ thatâs done all of that, is it? I donât remember any referendums asking me to choose between my life or the planetâsâŠ
We do accept it though â itâs just the extortionate high âprice of progressâ. Itâs a great system: where billionaires get to launch themselves into orbit, while we get to keep the ecological fallout! (Finally, something that âtrickles downâ â just a shame itâs mostly carbon emissions and toxic e-waste!)
While we watch our world wobble, weâre rapidly building a virtual one. But, thatâs adding to the problems itâs supposed to be fixing.
A physical weight thatâs contributing to the literal and metaphorical imbalance of the planet.
One of the largest contributors to this are data centres â the physical manifestation of our digital lives. Consuming power and water at a rate thatâs tilting the scales even faster.
These things are thirsty! A single large data centre can consume up to 5 million gallons of water daily for cooling, frequently drawing from drinking water supplies.
But, even worse, these centres are often built in water-stressed areas.
In Mesa, Arizona â a region already grappling with severe drought â a single Google data centre campus has a permit to consume up to 5.5 million gallons of water daily. A volume roughly equivalent to the daily needs of 23,000 local residents.
As AI grows, the data centre industry is expected to more than double its water consumption by 2030, with some estimations reaching 1.2 trillion litres annually.
And then thereâs the power consumptionâŠ.
Data centres consume approximately 2% to 3% of global electricity, a figure projected to rise significantly to 13% by 2030.
The problem is, a lot of it is wasted. A massive chunk of power is eaten up by supporting infrastructure â cooling and power management â rather than the actual computing.
Think of it like having a super-duper-intelligent teenager living in your houseâŠ
âŠ90% of the time, they are in their room creating incredible artwork, solving complex maths problems and learning three languagesâŠall at once.
But, 10% of the time, theyâre coming downstairs, pulling a fully cooked lasagna out of the fridge, taking one bite and throwing the rest in the bin.
They have every light, TV and computer in the house onâŠwhile they take a three-hour showerâŠwith the air-con on and the windows wide openâŠ
I dunno, it all seems a bit reckless doesnât it?
Weâre sacrificing gallons of fresh water (the stuff human beings need to, you knowâŠnot die!) just to keep these server farms cool through evaporation. Often, in already water-stressed regions!
A single ChatGPT query requires nearly 10 times more electricity to process than a standard Google search. AI image generation can take 2â5 litres of water for just a few images.
And for what? To prompt AI to generate super-real images of a âcat lawyerâ presenting evidence to a jury of other cats?!
We are transforming our shared planet into a giant, expensive toaster. Burning through resources for the sake of moreâŠdigital brainrot?
Now, thatâs the kind of plot twist that makes me want to shout at the screen!
But, maybe itâs not too late to rewrite the endingâŠ..
We donât have to be passengers along for the ride as we head for disaster. We can start to steer it in a different direction.
Be the engineers of a more sustainable digital future. The same ingenuity that built these massive models can be redirected toward cooling technology that doesnât evaporate our shared, limited resources.
We can demand transparency, push for energy-efficient data centres and use these tools for solving critical problems. Not just âcreatingâ more AI âslopââŠ.
Maybe, we donât have to choose between AI and a habitable planet.
But, we must choose to stop ignoring the cost.
Citizen Jane x âïž
p.s. What do you think? Is AI going to be the solution or add to the problem? Letâs keep talking in the comments below đ
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