Bashing AI data centers is all the craze, and types are cashing in.
“AI knowledge facilities waste thousands and thousands of gallons of water,” former NFL participant Jason Kelce says as he seems to pee right into a jar in a brand new advert for his beer model, Storage Beer, and the canned water model Liquid Demise.
“We would like your pee to chill these knowledge facilities,” Kelce says, earlier than breaking right into a track with lyrics like “please give us your pee” and “let’s pee on computer systems collectively.”
The advert says to have a Storage Beer or a Liquid Demise Glowing Power drink, then “ship your pee to the AI knowledge middle of your selection,” as an individual within the advert drops a jar of pee at a publish workplace.
Small print on the backside of the advert cautions that “The fits need us to let you know to please do not truly ship your pee.”
The advert highlights the uphill PR battle AI firms and knowledge middle builders face as extra Individuals report considerations about AI’s impacts.
“There are various issues that Individuals cannot agree on, however opposition to AI knowledge facilities is the one factor nearly everybody can agree upon throughout the political and cultural spectrum,” Andy Pearson, Liquid Demise’s vice chairman of inventive, mentioned in a press release to Enterprise Insider.
Andy Sauer, CEO and co-owner of Storage Beer, mentioned in a press release offered to Enterprise Insider that each Storage Beer and Liquid Demise are “humor-forward manufacturers” which are “additionally severe in regards to the essential issues.”
“Water is the world’s most precious useful resource, and knowledge facilities are a sizzling subject, so we obtained collectively to have some enjoyable, whereas elevating slightly consciousness,” he mentioned.
Kelce and his brother, Travis Kelce, each co-owners of Storage Beer, haven’t been vocal critics of AI, however their model is not the primary to leap on the AI-criticism bandwagon in its advertising.
After the advertising marketing campaign for Good friend, the wearable AI companion, confronted backlash final yr, Heineken put up a billboard in New York Metropolis that includes the same system that mentioned: “One of the simplest ways to make a good friend is over a beer.” Legacy digicam model Polaroid’s summer time advertising has included photos of individuals swimming outdoors alongside messages like: “Go leap in some water earlier than the information facilities drink all of it up.”
AI firms have been responding with advertisements of their very own. A Meta ad final month promoted a cheerful imaginative and prescient of the AI future and mentioned the corporate disagreed with destructive predictions in regards to the tech’s influence. An Anthropic advert additionally addressed AI anxiousness head-on, that includes alarming photos resembling a home on hearth and a voiceover of individuals questioning AI’s impacts. “There’s hope in exhausting questions,” the advert mentioned.
AI knowledge facilities, specifically, have drawn rising opposition throughout the nation from residents holding protests and submitting lawsuits to dam proposed developments over considerations about water and power use, increased utility payments, and noise. A Enterprise Insider evaluation final yr discovered the increase in knowledge facilities, a few of which use water for cooling, was deepening the water crisis.
In line with the Information Middle Coalition, an business commerce group, knowledge middle firms use varied cooling strategies, together with some closed-loop or waterless methods, and prioritize environment friendly water practices that account for native water availability. The group cites a 2024 report compiled by a authorities fee in Virginia that discovered that almost all knowledge facilities use about as a lot water as, or lower than, a big workplace constructing, however that some require way more.
As for whether or not mailing your pee to knowledge facilities to be used as coolant is a good suggestion, the US Postal Service didn’t reply to a request for remark.
