Thread by @realjusthuman

🧵YSK:

The "data center hysteria" is largely a repacking of the "climate change hysteria."

The hysteria is fueled, in part, by bad data, lack of perspective, and influence operations that lead with emotional bait.

Like the 20th-century predictions of climate catastrophes, it is another form of anti-capitalism (pro-communism) propaganda meant to capture your mind through fear.

A teachable moment.

In 2025, a left-wing anti-AI author, Karen Hao, published her non-fiction book 'Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI.'

It's done very well. A NYT bestseller and winner of multiple awards, the book received much praise.

Anti-AI and anti-data center sentiments, which go hand in hand, are now mainstream, and this book boosted them there.

You may have noticed the uptick in opposition to both.

Sometimes the angle of surveillance, aka "Big Brother," is also included.

About six months ago Hao was made aware of bad data in her book.

A report she cited regarding a proposed data center in Cerrillos, a suburb of Santiago, Chile, contained erroneous data.

As a result, it overestimated the water usage of a proposed data center in Chile, stating it would consume 1,000x as much water per day as the city of ~88,000 residents does!

1000x as much water as the city!?!?

The claim was unbelievable on its face, just like the extreme climate change predictions often have been, but it was presented as a seminal tale of how a single center was going to destroy a city.

But Hao's numbers were wrong.

The real usage was .22, not 1000.

A number 4,545 times smaller than the one she published in her book!!!

Which, for a graduate of MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering, as Hao is, that's very troubling.

Hao got the bad figure from an anti-data center activist group in Chile, Mosacat (she calls them a "water activist group"), and published it in chapter 12 of her book.

Much to her credit, Hao acknowledged and took responsibility for the error.

Her thread explaining the error is linked, and she does, admirably, take it on the chin and explain what occurred.

And then she pumps the anti-data center narrative immediately after doing so, posting six replies about data center water usage.

Still, to her credit, she is making an edit to future prints of the hardcover edition of her book to correct for the bad number.

The scary story remains, but at least the 1,000x figure is removed.
karendhao.com/20251217/empir…

Despite the error in the book and the other problematic claims it offers (see bullet points from Andy Masley's article), it remains a bestseller and has been given multiple awards.

Hao, of course, continues to push the narrative that AI and data centers are extremely harmful and will soon usher in a new age of tech bro colonialism...or something.
blog.andymasley.com/p/empire-of-ai…

And people continue to uncritically accept and repeat claims in the book.

Now in paperback.

In celebration of the one-year anniversary of the book's release, Hao promoted 'The Resist AI List.'

It's almost too on the nose, isn't it?

This isn't a thread intended to bash Karen Hao, though.

She deserves criticism but also deserves credit for publicly acknowledging the error and submitting changes to her publisher.

But it is a thread intended to highlight the bad combination of

- An author with a firm posture against a subject
- Uncritically taking data from an activist group organized to fight that same subject
- The data becomes bad info in a scary story about that subject
- That scary story gets published in a non-fiction book about said subject
- And that book does well, gets awards, etc.
- The bad info then spreads like pollen.

And I am very allergic to pollen.

In part thanks to the story in the book, a simple narrative has been constructed and amplified:

Data centers are using up all the drinking water wherever they are built. AI is bad. Data centers are bad.

Don’t you care about having drinking water?

Don't you want to fight techno-colonialism?

The bad info in that scary story has been disseminated and used to push a narrative, pursuading others to join the author in assuming a posture against that same subject.

Achoo! 🤧

Media outlets, politicians, and influencers—persuaded by the anti-AI and anti-data-center demagoguery—then repeat wildly exaggerated claims in articles, speeches, interviews, and posts, spreading the bad information to their readers, constituents, and followers.

Fear sells.

How do you undo the damage from this?

You don't, because you can't.

By the time the correction is made, it's far too late.

But you can get an eye for seeing it as it happens and getting your guard up.

Primarily by not letting emotions lead your thoughts.

The fear-based tactics in play here are the same the Left (Marxists and Communists) have used for decades in the subject area of climate science, simply repackaged for computer science.

Activist author + activist groups + exaggerated claims + data that few will ever check + packaging into a story + media exposure = dissemination of party-approved messaging to the population.

Guard your mind:

Remove emotions.

Check your sources and the sources of others!

Check my sources in this thread.

Don't trust, verify.

Verify again.

Check for alternative explanations.

Scrutinize it all, weigh the evidence, apply discernment, and arrive at a conclusion.

Carry a shield:

You can better inform yourself on the subject as a shield against manipulation.

Significant areas of confusion for the public that opponents of data centers are often exploiting are what kind of water is used, what does consumption mean, where does the water go, and what kind of system is used?

By not defining any of those terms and not providing answers to those basic areas of inquiry, the audience is left to assume the worst—that drinking water is used, that the drinking water is just consumed (gone), that drought follows, and that the data center will kill off whatever community it is built nearest to.

Never mind that if a data center obliterates a water source and, by effect, the nearby community and environment, it has also destroyed itself.

If the fear-baited lure gets swallowed, then the emotional hook is set.

Here's just a small amount of information on the subject:

- The figures on water usage often leave out who is using it directly. Is it the data center or the power plant that already exists and is providing power to the data center? This is called "indirect water usage," and sometimes the figures of what the power plant uses for power generation and what the data center uses for cooling are lumped together so that a bigger (and scarier) number can be printed.

- The water used isn't always drinkable (potable). It sometimes is, yes. But some of the data centers use nonpotable water (you can't drink it). It's important to know which is being used and how.

- The water is returned to the water cycle/system, either by depositing it back in the water system it came from or via evaporation. Consumption does not equal the water being removed from existence.

- The estimates of water usage per data center that are often repeated sound enormous, such as "1 million gallons per day!"

But these numbers are largely tied to indirect use and peak operation. As in, the nearest power plant will use 'x' amount of water in producing 'y' amount of energy for the data center if the center is running at peak capacity.

It's like if you estimated your car's miles per gallon while at peak throttle under maximum load... going up a hill.

To give the "1 million gallons per day" number some perspective, that's more than the average 18-hole golf course in a wet climate (like on the East Coast) would use per day but less than what the average 18-hole golf course in a dry climate (like Arizona, Nevada, or California) uses per day.

Is the 18-hole golf course nearest you depleting your water source?

Are golf courses bringing about a new colonial age?

Final thoughts:

I'm an anti-pollution, pro-environment, pro-cheap energy, and pro-human kind of guy.

Data centers should be held to account for how they impact the environment, the water supply, and the community—the same as any other industry ought to be.

We can do that through legislation and regulation of them.

I'm all for pushing them to use the MOST conservative, MOST efficient cooling systems (like a closed loop of non-potable water); rejecting construction in areas that are already strained by current local water usage; and blocking their construction in areas where energy costs are already high.

What, you didn't think (assume) I was a data center shill, did you?

Just be aware that the "data center hysteria" is largely a repacking of the "climate change hysteria" and "anti-capitalism" and "anti-technology" refrains of the 20th century. Such narratives and causes are infamously the stomping grounds of Marxists, Communists, and unhinged Lefties.

It is often the case that their position on a subject boils down to limiting technology, limiting our economy, and limiting our ability to advance and grow.

While our adversaries are under no such limitations.