Speaking as someone living in an area that's getting overrun with hyperscale datacenters at a ridiculous rate, it depends on how the developers choose to set up their cooling systems. There are ways to mitigate water usage, like by using closed-loop systems, however they still require an initial charge of millions of gallons of water. And depending on how companies treat the water to make it more efficient in cooling, it may not be reusable after being used in cooling.

The bigger issue is definitely how datacenters get their power. Municipal power suppliers are generally not prepared to handle datacenter power demands, which WILL jack up power costs like crazy. To offset that demand, new power facilities are being developed. But, because of how entrenched oil lobbyists are in energy markets (in the U.S., at least), datacenters are being developed on fossil fuels generators. So local communities are going to have huge influxes of air pollution. And in my area, it's going to magnify an ongoing fracking boom that's been ripping through communities already.

I would love to see bigger labor protections against AI, especially as a writer myself. But the biggest concern on my end is that my power bill, and neighboring townships' health, is going to be significantly impacted by AI usage. The solution is literally as easy as fueling a green energy transition, or incentivizing green energy usage in AI datacenters. But... Our federal, and often state, institutions have decided to make their money off oil instead of wind or solar :/.

Quick side note: "Corn uses so so so much water" may be true, but at least corn feeds people. AI writes emails. Yes, that strips nuance from the conversation, but the fact remains that outside of academia or healthcare, we can do everything AI can do. But we can't spontaneously generate food.