Fuel is still useful, no? I’m all for combatting climate change and pollution, but fuel is needed and the cost of producing corn is offset by the use of it. My point being that regardless if AI uses less input, the useful output is minimal and thus not worth it and water use we could’ve saved.
I’m not disagreeing that corn can be or is a bad fuel source, just that it is still better than AI at the thing it is supposed to do.
As far as I’m aware, the water used by data centers is not going back to where it came from. It’s either recirculated right back into the data center or discarded contaminated (microplastics and other chemicals), creating extra pollution. The amount that enters the atmosphere is not that large and might travel away from the original location, as clouds do.
The efficiency of human artists is more a societal problem. We got plenty of talented people, they kinda train themselves, it’s just that we underfund them.
Ethanol is also used in food and as a disinfectant.
I don’t disagree with how bad the production of Ethanol and such can be, just the comparison to AI data centers in terms of cost and usefulness in return.