From https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/1vh6391/environmental_impact_of_ai_datacenters_vs_animal/
Sources:
Water use:
https://www.foodfacts.org/articles/how-much-water-does-ai-use-vs-livestock
Land use:
https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
Greenhouse gas emissions:
https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2024 https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/06/1167658 https://www.fao.org/statistics/highlights-archive/highlights-detail/greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-agrifood-systems.-global–regional-and-country-trends–2000-2022/en
- To the many comments along the lines of: „But we need food“ – This is actually another great point against Animal Agriculture, as every calory of food produced by Animal Agriculture wastes several calories of feed. https://awellfedworld.org/feed-ratios/
- For people pointing out energy consumption, AI uses ~500 TWH per year, Animal Agriculture uses~ 13000 TWH per year, so it is 25x worse on energy need.
(This is a quick estimate based on:
https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-supply-for-ai https://www.fao.org/energy/resources/facts-and-figures/en#%3A%7E%3Atext=%28+World+Bank%2C+2025%29+*+30+percent%2Cor+wasted+due+to+lack+of+refrigeration. )
I feel that’s pretty much the point where a conversation ends. We don’t specifically need to put a slice of a cow ontop of the sandwich.
Also a bit of a nonsensical argument. While we maybe don’t really need AI… We’re doing it anyway, don’t we? So why argue hypotheticals, when it’s reality that has an effect on the environment?