Critics accuse Karen Hao of overstating AI data center water consumption in Empire of AI by up to five orders of magnitude due to unit conversion errors and misrepresented figures

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This is the author who thrust AI water hysteria into the mainstream by overestimating data center water use by 100,000% in her book Empire of AI by mixing up units.

She is a source of wild misinformation. Imagine writing an Econ book on the premise that minimum wage is $7,250/hr

Karen Hao@_KarenHao

On the one-year anniversary of EMPIRE OF AI, I am so, so excited to announce The AI Resist List, a new project that documents examples of resistance to the AI empires around the world.

http://airesistlist.org

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Perry E. Metzger@perrymetzger

From the woman who created the lie that data centers use vast amounts of water, comes a book proposing that the world should not use one of the best technologies ever invented for improving our lives.

Karen Hao@_KarenHao

On the one-year anniversary of EMPIRE OF AI, I am so, so excited to announce The AI Resist List, a new project that documents examples of resistance to the AI empires around the world.

http://airesistlist.org

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Alexo@alexoterov

This is the author who claimed a Google data center in Chile would use “more than 1,000 times” the water of an entire city, off by a factor of 1,000 due to confusing liters per second with cubic meters per hour. She also presented 1.7 trillion gallons of projected water “withdrawal” as consumptive potable use, when only ~3% of that figure was drinkable water and 90% gets returned to source. Now she’s building a whole brand around “AI resistance,” joining its brethren in the anti-pharma, anti-vaccine, and wellness pseudoscience grift. Careers built on bad math and manufactured panic.

Karen Hao@_KarenHao

On the one-year anniversary of EMPIRE OF AI, I am so, so excited to announce The AI Resist List, a new project that documents examples of resistance to the AI empires around the world.

http://airesistlist.org

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Will Kinney@WKCosmo

@perrymetzger Why is always about "resistance"? One of the things that is most striking about this modern form of progressivism is how deeply reactionary it is.

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Andrey Kurenkov@andrey_kurenkov

Seeing this take more often lately and think it's 100% wrong!

'AI wastes water' was already around and mainstream way before this book, and I doubt the book did much to elevate it in public consciousness. It's more like a meme...

@AndyMasley curious if you feel similarly?

Kane 謝凱堯@kane

This is the author who thrust AI water hysteria into the mainstream by overestimating data center water use by 100,000% in her book Empire of AI by mixing up units.

She is a source of wild misinformation. Imagine writing an Econ book on the premise that minimum wage is $7,250/hr

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Mark Kretschmann@mark_k

@perrymetzger Aptly named Karen.

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Andrey Kurenkov@andrey_kurenkov

The error in the book itself was of course quite bad, but @_KarenHao 's response to it being pointed out was precisely what it should have been.

Andrey Kurenkov@andrey_kurenkov

Seeing this take more often lately and think it's 100% wrong!

'AI wastes water' was already around and mainstream way before this book, and I doubt the book did much to elevate it in public consciousness. It's more like a meme...

@AndyMasley curious if you feel similarly?

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Kane 謝凱堯@kane

It’s great that Karen addressed an error in her book Empire of AI in good faith. It confused liters w m^3 and overestimated data center water use by 1000x (100,000%).

Unfortunately the error exists in all the hard copies published and sold to date and is an egregious spread of misinformation.

Karen Hao@_KarenHao

We have confirmed the unit error in the government document, and I have issued a correction to my publisher. I have also made other updates based on the ongoing feedback. I detail these changes here: http://karendhao.com/20251217/empire-water-changes. Thank you to my readers for strengthening my book 🙏

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bart fish@bart_fish_

@perrymetzger you look really goofy when your misogyny is mixed with extreme techno-optimism.

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Perry E. Metzger@perrymetzger

@bart_fish_ Lying is the first refuge of scoundrels, and you are both a liar and a scoundrel.

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John Aziz@aziz0nomics

@kane Karen Hao the fuck did she get it so wrong?

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Perry E. Metzger@perrymetzger

@WKCosmo It’s especially about resistance to actual progress.

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Ian@IanBaer

@perrymetzger @ljupc0 I hope all the anti-AI people take her advice. I hope as few people use AI as possible. I want this advantage as long as possible.

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nic carter@nic_carter

@kane wildly over-estimate the scale of the problem -> people believe the 1000x overstated data and get upset about the problem -> celebrate the "resistance" movement that develops

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Nathan Speth@Speth27

@kane Her account based in Hong Kong and her book "accidentally" printing a wild error to create data center hysteria in the US.

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FaTheFree. 🥥🌴@alexandrade368

@kane The radical facist right is the side of censorship. This is how you know your side is a bunch of snowflakes; comedians like Stephen Colbert live rent free. Have to go as for as censoring comedy

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Chris Daniels@vessel4truth

@kane @pmarca Or we might just believe the 1000’s of videos we’ve seen on social media. I suppose those are all misinformation. I love this coordinated push on this platform for data centers. It’s almost like the Iran war, or support for Israel. This is just comical.

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𝕮𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝐓𝐲𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖓𝐲 XII@CounterTyrannyX

@kane Everyday these Haos who can't do math are telling us how to run our civilization with books, podcasts, and talk shows.

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EM@edwin_mccallum

@perrymetzger she corrected the water mistake

she prefers task-specific AI such as AlphaFold over general-purpose models and a lot of AI safety people agree with that view. way less risk from narrow vs general AI

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GeroDoc@doc_gero

@kane @Aristos_Revenge Anyone who buys this book deserves to be stupid

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