UK government suggests deleting files to save water
UK government suggests deleting files to save water
www.theverge.com
UK government suggests deleting files to save water
60 comments
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This is analogous to the "I'm using paper straws while the billionaires take a private jet each to Venice" situation.
So I should delete old mails so that maybe (and actually no, it won't) there will be less drives to cool in the datacentre while the techbros have entire datacentres using hundreds of terawatts of power[1] and is predicted to be using billions of cubic metres of water per year by 2027[2].
As usual, they're looking toward the people they can influence to make changes to their lifestyle, and ignoring the people actually doing the damage because they know they will not change.
[1] https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2024: IEA annual report showing that AI and crypto is estimated to have consumed 465tw/h of energy in 2024. [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/cindygordon/2024/02/25/ai-is-accelerating-the-loss-of-our-scarcest-natural-resource-water: Forbes report stating that AI datacentres are estimated to use around 6.6 billion cubic metres of water by the year 2027.
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Wait, you mean deleting a few MB out of the (max) 10s of GB won't make a dent in the TB/PB storage needs of companies who are actively sucking up data to process for their LLMs.
Well color me fucking shocked
E: lollabytes
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Going by the Forbes article's numbers on adult human water consumption, 6.6 billion m3 would be pretty damn close to the entire human population's water needs. 2.6 litres per adult per day is 0.949 m3 over a year, so multiplying that by a world population of 8.2 billion people (I know that's adults and children but I'm approximating for scale here) is 7.7 billion m^3 of fresh water
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2.6L/day might cover drinking water, but definitely not cooking/cleaning/bathing/laundry. Let alone growing food.
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You alone are nothing, but everyone else like you adds up. Private airplanes of the billionaires in total to less fuel than commercial airplanes. Not that billionaires shouldn't reduce their consumption, but the "common man" even though insignificant alone still adds up to a lot.
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Private airplanes of the billionaires in total to less fuel than commercial airplanes.
Ah yes, planes used by 1% of the population isn't equal to thr planes used by 99% of the population. What a great comparison!
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I fucking hate this argument
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Sure, but since per capita they can do pretty much a billion times more than me. Then, I think it should be "after them"
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The country is riddled with leaky mains pipes because water companies are more concerned with allocating huge bonuses to themselves than they are with fixing infrastructure.
Now we're courting tech companies to build more data centres that our other shitty infrastructure (electric) isn't even fit to support because magic money tree go brrrrrrr
This is mandated recycling 2.0. Fill supermarkets with products 99% of which come in plastic wrappers, only successfully recover a fraction of that, and then tell the consumer they're the ones destroying the environment.
If they can fit my 5 recycling boxes up their rear, then they can shove this up their arse too.
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I suggest spitting to lose weight
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Nice analogy. I used this one in the past: "you can't fix a full disk by deleting word documents", but I like yours more
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I never heard so much bs in a single article. Those files and emails are stored on cold storage, and is using zero water. I guess it's a good thing to remove old files and empty your trash bin, both in real life as well as digital.
But this article makes no sense at all. Just one query to an AI will use so much more energy and water in comparison with your old email in cold storage. It's a joke.
Ps. By removing your files now, and checking the contents, you are actually moving the files from cold storage to hot. Meaning the server will load the data into memory etc. Which will actually makes this drought worse, not better.
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How about deleting private ownership of utilities instead?
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I tried deleting my files but I was age checked...
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Fk UK government
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I hope the Department that released this guidance is being absolutely pilloried in UK media. What an absolutely worthless, dishonest pile of crap.
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How is deleting locally-stored files on your home PC going to save water, when your hardware sips resources vs. any AI datacenter in existence?
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I don't think I will. In fact, I think I'll download more.
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Authoritarian and incompetent.
Just like all the other Fascists.
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So where does this water go after evaporating or leaking from your toilet? Is it flying into deep space and being lost for our planet forever?
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Absolute farce of a country
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I'll also wear blue clothing to have the same impact
Well, deleting stuff causes a load of processing that wouldn't have otherwise happened... So I guess I should have some coal barbecues?
60 comments
So pass a law banning evaporative cooling systems from all industrial and commercial applications (or single out data centers), give them 6 months to comply and start handing out fines every day past the deadline.
straight up not feasible for many serious and necessary facilities like powerplants and refineries, unless you prefer very warm lake or river nearby (which also cools down by evaporation later)
It's very feasible to create the law, collect the fine, and raise the price on energy sources or industrial process that require the cooling.
It's a formality, you could do it in an afternoon. Costs a bit of ink and a piece of paper.
"But then it gets more expensive!" and "This might push corporations out of the city/country." is the consequence the people / the government / the country have to have the balls to endure, if they want to stand by things like "having enough water" or "living on earth in the 22nd century".
If the free market is something you believe in, you should love this, because it makes water a more scarce resource and the market will be able to find another optimal solution to that new scarcity problem.
Which is why I mentioned limiting it to data centers as an option
They could heat many houses or fill many heat reservoirs instead.
cool. and watch the entire right wing go mad over “net zero wokery” and “stealth taxes choking our economy to death.” then watch reform win with a landslide and bulldoze the entire net zero agenda and see where we end up.
The right will always complain no matter what you do, so why bother listening to them and capitulating?