University libraries are being swarmed by AI bots, putting public access at risk

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

My province there's currently a deal going down for an AI datacenter. The same segment of population against that were also against a developer putting a golf course on prtected lands.

Good to hear. That's why I said I don't outright dismiss it. But in a desert, I don't think they should be allowed to build golf courses, casinos, or large cities on even unprotected land.

At least in my general area: many of the people around me who are up on their anti-datacenter soapboxes are the same ones who start bashing on their phone screens whenever they can't get their data quick enough. Not all of them, mind you. I'm just saying that a lot people are jumping on the anti-datacenter bandwagon without knowing the slightest bit about other huge resource hogs that have gotten free passes forever.

[Courant]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

By this logic, droughts shouldn't ever happen.

Droughts happen because water leaves the region, either by evaporating or by flowing away. If water is just pumped through the data center and then immediately returned to the source, then the amount of water removed from the environment would be minimal. If the water is pumped out and evaporated or some how contaminated, then the water would be used up. I am not sure this actually works. The solution however is obvious, the price of water should be reflect its rarity, which is often not the case in the US.

Edit: I looked it up. Most data centers, which aren't just used for AI, use evaporative cooling, which is the most energy efficient. About 85% of the water withdrawn is consumed. However, a lot more water is consumed indirectly, because power plants are also cooled by water.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Courant

Edit: I looked it up. Most data centers, which aren't just used for AI, use evaporative cooling, which is the most energy efficient. About 85% of the water withdrawn is consumed. However, a lot more water is consumed indirectly, because power plants are also cooled by water.

And new power plants are needed for the new data centers.

[Frogm4n]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I don't dismiss concerns about data-center water consumption outright. But I do tend to notice that the same people who worry about it enough for the both of us, don't usually seem to be quite as distraught over golf courses' massive water consumption (especially those in arid locations).

Save a datacenter: RELOCATE VEGAS!!

Vegas is one of the best stewards of water use on the Colorado River. It's other states and agriculture that are the wasteful ones and almost always take more than their allocated share.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Frogm4n

Vegas is one of the best stewards of water use on the Colorado River. It's other states and agriculture that are the wasteful ones and almost always take more than their allocated share.

They could be the greatest stewards of water on the planet and it wouldn't matter to me. A desert is not the place for golf courses that need greens watered, and millions of people that need to drink. You build where the water IS.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

I find such 'news' hilarious. It is people pretending to do something worthwhile for the people(tm), but as it turns out, the AI is the only visitor who was ever interested in what they are doing. Their incapability to handle even a meager demand is so telling.

Have you even bothered to look at the amount of internet traffic that is generated by/for AI?

As for university libraries internet traffic, a quick check with one acquaintance works in a university IT department returned the information that while the library averaged 9.7M website visits in the first half of 2024, for the first half of 2026, the number of visits was 34.3M. Oddly, the number of users only climbed from 98.2K to 101.9K (number of unique connections that used a university or guest login). The average user logged in 1.4 times per week. This number excludes the small group of users who logged in >100 times per week and ended up with their accounts being suspended. The ratio of the average number of active users compared to the number of connections was ~840 in FH 2026 compared to ~320 in FH 2024.

Current Internet bandwidth for the campus is ~500GBps, The campus residences Internet bandwidth is 750GBps and CANARIE (a dedicated network between universities, research facilities, research hospitals and colleges) can run up to 400GBps.

[John F]

Originally Posted by DNSB

...

Current Internet bandwidth for the campus is ~500GBps, The campus residences Internet bandwidth is 750GBps and CANARIE (a dedicated network between universities, research facilities, research hospitals and colleges) can run up to 400GBps.

I'm ignorant on internet speeds, but are those really GBps and not MBps? Internet and not intranet?

[DiapDealer]

I've never really understood why anyone relied upon voluntary adherence to the robots.txt file in the first place. It's not as if bad actors were hard to predict.

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by DNSB

for the first half of 2026, the number of visits was 34.3M.

If a web server cannot handle 2 connections per second, that means only that the site administration misappropriated the funds. It was a neglible load even in early 2000s.

[Courant]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

And new power plants are needed for the new data centers.

Even if they aren't building new plants, the indirect water consumption of a data center is by one calculation, 12 times that of direct water consumption.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

My province there's currently a deal going down for an AI datacenter. The same segment of population against that were also against a developer putting a golf course on prtected lands.

Yeah, like me.

There's definitely people only not in favor of one of them but golf courses have been criticized for water, pesticide usage for a while now.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

I'm ignorant on internet speeds, but are those really GBps and not MBps? Internet and not intranet?

My error, those should be Gbps (bits not bytes). And Internet. Also in 3 parts. 1 for campus traffic, one for residences traffic and the 3rd dedicated to high speed links for research traffic. How many home internet connections now have 1Gbps speeds for reasonable pricing?