Quilicura, Chile Residents Dress as "Human AI" to Protest Data Center Water Consumption
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Residents of Quilicura, Chile launched the "Quili AI" campaign, spending a day role-playing as "human AI," manually responding to prompts and creating content with local artists to visually demonstrate the impact of AI data center water consumption on the local area. Quilicura is located in the Maipo River basin and has been a hub for AI data centers since the early 2010s, with server cooling consuming large amounts of water. Combined with the climate crisis, Chile faces a severe drought expected to last until 2040.
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Quilicura, Chile, located in the Maipo River Basin, has become a major hub for AI data centers that use large amounts of water to cool servers, and combined with an ongoing climate crisis, Chile faces a severe drought expected to last until 2040. To make the impact visible, residents of Quilicura became "human A.I." for a day, answering prompts, creating content with local artists, and completing other tasks manually. The initiative aimed to dimensionalize a complex problem and show the real people affected by the irresponsible use of AI and its hidden cost on local water resources.
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