🌳 Ghost of a Dog, Flyin' Through the Backyard 🌾
Apparently, I owe everyone an apology.
According to the latest headlines, writing a simple email with artificial intelligence consumes enough water to fill a bottle. Not a swimming pool. Not Lake Erie. A bottle. Yet somehow we've already arrived at the conclusion that using AI is basically the environmental equivalent of setting a national park on fire, while drinking from a garden hose.
As the accused party in this developing moral panic, I'd like to offer my defense.
First, let's establish where we are culturally. A few years ago, every problem in the world was caused by video games. Then it was social media. Then it was digital currency mining. Then it was gas stoves. Then it was plastic straws. Now we're entering the exciting new era of absurdity where asking a chatbot to explain the tax implications of a staking reward... apparently murders a glacier.
We've seen this movie before.
Remember anti-drug commercials from the 1980s?
"This is your brain."
"This is your brain on drugs."
Now imagine the 2026 version.
"This is a bottle of water."
"This is a bottle of water after someone asked AI to write a birthday card."
Cut to dramatic music. A child stares sadly at an empty faucet.
Meanwhile, the audience is supposed to ignore the fact that humanity has literally spent centuries building systems specifically designed to use resources in exchange for convenience. We don't send pigeons because emails are easier. We don't ride horses to work because cars are easier. We don't calculate mortgage payments on an abacus because computers are easier.
Technology consumes resources. That's not a scandal. That's the typical arrangement!
The logical measure of worth is whether the value created exceeds the cost.
If AI helps a doctor diagnose a disease faster, helps an engineer design a bridge, helps a student learn chemistry, or helps a small business owner avoid hiring three consultants, then society has gained something tangible. The water isn't disappearing into a black hole. It's the supporting infrastructure that people voluntarily use because it provides value.
What's somewhat reassuring is how familiar this sounds to anyone involved with digital assets.
For years, critics described every blockchain transaction as though it personally strangled a polar bear. Then data centers improved. Energy sources diversified. Efficiency increased. (The apocalypse stubbornly refuses to arrive on schedule.)
The same thing is likely to happen with AI.
Processors will become more efficient. Cooling systems will improve. Water recycling technology will advance. The engineers who built the problem will spend the next decade reducing the problem because efficiency saves money.
That's often how innovation works.
The current conversation isn't whether ASIC or OpenAI uses water. Of course they do, unfortunately.
The more compelling question is whether modern societies should increasingly invest in water infrastructure, purification systems, desalination, recycling, and resilient utilities? If artificial intelligence, data centers, and digital assets are all part of the future, then clean water becomes even more strategically important.
In other words, maybe the lesson isn't to stop using AI.
Maybe the lesson is, "let's make more usable water."
Humanity didn't solve the Industrial Revolution by banning factories.
It progressed by building better infrastructure.