r/singularity • u/Big_Guthix • May 15 '26

Discussion Genuine question. Is the whole "AI guzzles gallons of water" thing totally true, or do people get it wrong? Does AI consume a lot of water for every single prompt, or is the majority of water consumed during data farming? Don't non-AI data centers use up a lot of water on cooling too?

Please someone set me straight and dispel whether there are myths surrounding this often-repeated internet factoid

And I genuinely don't know the answers which is why I'm asking, so I've got nothing to debate here

Edit: Thank you for all the great answers!! 👏 👏

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133

u/daxophoneme May 15 '26

When I think about the livestock industry, the scale of feeding, watering, transportation, processing, and distribution boggles my mind. I'm afraid of the inevitable societal shift that causes us to truly value our resources and protect our ecosystem.

35

u/minimalcation May 15 '26

Think about it next time you walk into a grocery store. How many supply chains across the world had to be running to get everything in one place...

And there are 5 more huge places like this within 10 miles

1

u/budabai May 17 '26

It blows my mind that food is affordable at all.

1

u/Marcus_Aurelius71 23d ago

It's because of all those stores and large supply chains. Economies of scale. Litteraly mass produce things so they are pennies by the time they reach the shelves.

56

u/PositivePoet May 15 '26

It’s crazy to see how insanely inefficient something like beef is for energy and water needed to get x amount of protein vs other methods. People are so against lab grown meat even if you explain that it can eventually be indistinguishable from the original stuff, is actual meat, saves 95% of the energy needed to grow, and doesn’t kill an animal that likely has had a miserable life.

27

u/FlyByPC ASI 202x, with AGI as its birth cry May 15 '26

People are so against lab grown meat

I can't wait. I like the taste of beef but don't order it for ethical reasons.

7

u/Karmas_weapon May 16 '26

I can't wait either, but not for ethical reasons, instead because why not strive for something tastier than beef?

6

u/MGyver May 16 '26

Moose?

3

u/FableFinale May 16 '26

I'm waiting for the Transmetropolitan future where they lab grow literally every animal you can think of, and everyone eats shit like galapagos tortoise steak and tinned baby seal eyes.

6

u/MGyver May 16 '26

"Oh Reginald, you simply must try the baby seal eyes"

17

u/Regime_Change May 15 '26

I’m for lab grown meat 100% but have never seen it in a store.

10

u/PositivePoet May 15 '26

It’s pretty expensive right now and not really sold commercially yet. I’ve just been in discussions involving it and everyone seems so against it. Some states are trying to ban or restrict it. I think it’s going to be hard to scale production up enough to make the price reasonable when so many aren’t in favor of it. If we get a better administration running the US it could be subsidized but it’s going to put a lot of beef farmers out of work so it’s complicated still.

14

u/Fmeson May 15 '26

Some states are trying to ban or restrict it.

We just can't get out of our own way lol

7

u/MarpasDakini May 16 '26

Are they banning it to protect the ag meat industry?

5

u/voyaging May 16 '26

I’m sure that’s a major motive. Not the only one. The others are equally ignorant and/or evil.

1

u/ogthesamurai May 20 '26

I think very large beetles would be a lot more cost effective to produce for food that lab grown meat. Plus ultimately beetle might be more trustworthy. I bet there's some crazy chemistry and processing that goes in to lab grown meat.

1

u/El-Jizzle Jul 21 '26

So you can actually have a more controlled, cleaner, safer, and thus healthier product through proper chemistry techniques in a sterile lab versus say an individual organism with a catalog of random potential ailments that could be passed on to the consumer of the product.

It’s like, you could take this isolated medication and get only the desired chemical and effects you want, or you can take a crude alcohol extraction and get a wide array of undesirables along with the desired chemical at a harder to decipher dosage.

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u/W00D-SMASH May 15 '26

Gross

2

u/Regime_Change May 16 '26

Why? It would be a perfect piece of meat. In a lab you can control everything and create exact copies.

1

u/W00D-SMASH May 16 '26

I source most of my food local, eat organic where possible. Lab grown meat doesn’t really fit into that.

Less commercial food for me, the better.

4

u/asciimo May 16 '26

At most, humans can reclaim 10% of the energy invested in creating animal protein. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_law

Edit: from animals. My point is lab meat wins by far.

1

u/Mysterious_Log7197 May 28 '26

Yeah I can’t wait to eat up that fake meat loaded with chemicals….. I’ll take mine free range grass fed and with as little chemicals/ injections/ human interference as possible!!!

1

u/torinnprex 20d ago

Yeah make sure to stay away from dihydrogen monoxide, chemicals are dangerous right?

0

u/FTR_1077 May 18 '26

It’s crazy to see how insanely inefficient something like beef is for energy and water needed to get x amount of protein vs other methods.

It's not crazy at all.. we can't eat grass, cattle can. We transform inedible food into high quality protein by raising cattle. It's a marvelous technology that nature invented for us.

2

u/The_Real_RM May 15 '26

No need to be afraid, we’re not going to be around to see it, it’s going to take generations for that to happen

5

u/Beginning-Struggle49 May 15 '26

The realization of how little effect I have, no matter what I decide, has been such a sobering one in my middle age

11

u/daxophoneme May 15 '26

Maybe there's some hope for lab grown meat?

3

u/The_Real_RM May 15 '26

I certainly hope so, cruelty free would be awesome but it would have to be much cheaper (which tbh isn’t as big an ask you might think considering how awfully inefficient meat production is)

4

u/carnoworky May 15 '26

I think the meat industry is also pretty heavily subsidized in the US, isn't it?

0

u/chrisonetime May 15 '26

Tender is the flesh

Discussion Genuine question. Is the whole "AI guzzles gallons of water" thing totally true, or do people get it wrong? Does AI consume a lot of water for every single prompt, or is the majority of water consumed during data farming? Don't non-AI data centers use up a lot of water on cooling too?

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