A mere three percent of the world’s water can be used for drinking and agriculture. Already, more than 1.1 billion people globally do not have access to water. At least two-thirds of the population experiences severe water shortages for at least one month per year.
One would think that as a society, we would prioritize the conservation of this fundamental life force above all else. But we are instead prioritizing the advancement of generative AI, an entity that is consuming our resources and giving back homogenized content that functions to strip us of our critical thinking skills.
AI data centers — temperature-controlled buildings that lodge servers, data storage drivers and network equipment — mainly use water to evaporate heat from their computers. Water vaporizes and, in most cases, cannot be reused. Although the water footprint is difficult to measure, estimates range from 300,000 to 5 million gallons of water use per day by a single large data center. Put into perspective, this level of consumption is similar to that of a small town. Forecast errors in the amount of water a data center needs can disrupt the functioning of municipal water systems that are designed for residential use, not constant industrial cooling.
The technology consumes energy at alarming rates as well. Energy consumption has been a long-standing concern in climate change and sustainability. The more we use AI, the more data centers we will need, and the larger the disruption to the environment will be.
AI has been part of our online infrastructure for years now, but with the rapid popularization of generative AI, the number of data centers and, in parallel, the amount of water consumption, is increasing at rates that our resources cannot keep up with. The evaporative cooling process also leaves behind high concentrations of salt and other contaminants in the water bodies that are affected, leading to water quality issues in the water that is left.
It is even more concerning that the rapid depletion of our resources is used to fund the creation of AI-generated slop that concurrently degrades our minds, our creativity and whatever critical thinking capabilities we had left after the proliferation of short-form content. Critical thinking will soon become a thing of the past, with every platform ranging from Google Docs to Instagram’s direct messaging coaxing you into asking AI to take your notes for you or summarize your friend’s text messages. AI is also homologizing the information market, with every knowledge base funnelled through systems controlled by a small group of people who manage the AI. If all our information comes from the same source, we are forgoing the necessary checks that traditionally reduce bias and sacrificing our ability to conduct research and learn for ourselves.
Information is readily fed to us in a short, easy-to-understand form, and we consume it the same way we consume fast food, regardless of the consequences to ourselves and others. The issue has gone so far and has become so normalized that Miriam-Webster’s 2025 word of the year was “slop.”
People are suffering from a lack of clean water because we are choosing to fill our Instagram and TikTok feeds, and consequently our minds, with the fruit version of Love Island.
In the political realm, the government is resorting to posting AI slop online that is so egregious that it serves as a mask for any actual atrocities they commit. If we can normalize President Donald J. Trump posting a video of himself in a military jet that says “King Trump,” dumping excrement on a crowd of protestors, what else can we normalize? This essentially makes radical ideas mainstream and moves the goalposts for what discourse we can have. More and more horrific things will become more and more normalized.
Unfortunately, even though we are all constantly bombarded with AI, the negative environmental effects of upkeeping AI data centers will disproportionately affect people in poverty first, and the wealthy elite who own these data centers last. People who are already struggling to find clean drinking water or supply their fields will face the consequences of our AI use first.
We must take a step back and consider the implications of AI use on a personal and societal level before we make steps that we cannot undo.
The Daily Targum’s editorials represent the views of the majority of the 158th editorial board. Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Targum Publishing Company or its staff.
