Watching a documentary on server farms gave me a chill about AI's footprint

Claire Taylor · 2026-02-28T04:30:52.396133+00:00

I was watching this show about big data centers last night, and it hit me how much power they use. It's crazy to think that every AI query adds to that load. Now I'm wondering if we should have rules for AI energy use. Like, who decides if an AI is worth the carbon cost? It's a weird moral thing I never thought about before.

lucash536mo ago

What if AI's energy hit hurts poor areas first, @spencer77?

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spencer776mo ago

Yeah that's a scary thought actually.

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jana_sanchez966mo ago

Guess we'll need AI to figure out if AI is worth the power bill.

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pat_rivera5mo ago

Man, I used to brush off the power use too. But @jana_sanchez96 is right, the cost is getting real when you see where some data centers go. It feels like we're building a problem while trying to solve one.

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