FRONT PORCH: Will AI cause us to sacrifice ‘wild & wonderful’?

By Dakota Baker, RealWV

Welcome to our front porch, where we like to discuss what’s going on around the state. Today, we dive into big tech.

It is no secret artificial intelligence (AI) has taken off at a rapid pace over the last several years. Flooding our social media feeds with outrageously ridiculous videos and profile pictures, it has become practically impossible to not come across an AI generated piece of media while doom-scrolling.

Simple, funny, harmless entertainment, right?

Unfortunately, AI is not all giggles and harmless fun. There seem to be serious environmental repercussions to its usage. Specifically caused by the data centers used to power artificial intelligence. 

These data centers lack sufficient federal regulation, leaving them to be self-regulated by tech companies who are far more interested in lining their pockets than environmental well-being as data centers require an atrocious amount of energy and water to operate. 

Many tech companies lack transparency regarding their water footprint, but in 2021, Google reported that its global water consumption for all of its data centers amounted to approximately 4.3 billion gallons of water and in 2024 that amount increased to 8.1 billion gallons of water consumed across their data centers (nearly doubling in 3 years). 

Google’s data centers are just a small fraction of the amount of data centers that exist globally. As of 2021, it was estimated that U.S. data centers alone consume 163.7 billion gallons of water annually. To break this down simply, a 100-word AI prompt is estimated to use one bottle of water and billions of AI users enter a prompt onto AI systems such as ChatGPT every minute.

Our fresh water is a natural resource that is already scarce considering only 3% of Earth’s water is fresh water and only 0.5% of all water is safe for human consumption. Just as concerning, Earth’s fresh water has already been declining rapidly since 2002 and with the number of data centers continuing to double every few years, are data centers worth continuing this fresh water decline? 

These data centers not only require vast amounts of energy and water, they require a lot of land. Some of these data centers infest hundreds of acres of land. The same land we farm and build houses on, the same land our natural beauty thrives on.

Now, as AI usage continues to boom, more data center proposals are happening here in West Virginia. Not only could these data centers suck up our water, energy, and land, lead to energy cost spikes (as if we don’t see enough of those), the possibility of wastewater contamination, and disruption of quiet rural life for those who will be lucky enough to live in the vicinity of one.

The legislature is discussing these issues. Amendments to HB 4983 were made on February 17th with one of those being a requirement for high-impact data centers to provide water quality assessments. However, the amendment was shot down. Why would the tech companies not want to be transparent with the public on water quality? Why would the majority of our representatives vote against the proposed water quality assessments?

This is when it becomes crucial for us to ask ourselves: Should the convenience of artificial intelligence take priority over West Virginia’s natural beauty and the quality of life for its residents?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.