Editor’s Note:
Sean Boyle explains his use of AI to help him create his Facebook postings: He writes, “This page uses AI to clean up speech-to-text drafts, organize research, and generate images. Every fact, argument, and source is mine. AI does not research, verify, or decide what gets posted — it formats and clarifies what I have already written or documented. I am a third shift logistics worker in Carbon County running this page alone on my days off with no budget and no staff. AI is the tool that makes it possible to produce consistent, readable content at scale on behalf of communities that cannot afford a Philadelphia law firm. I am publicly transparent about this practice and have been since day one.”
One of the most persistent arguments used to discredit community advocates fighting data center proposals is this: if you use AI tools to write, research, or create images, you are contributing to the same problem you claim to oppose.
It sounds logical. It is not.
The confusion stems from treating two fundamentally different categories of activity as equivalent. They are not.
What individual AI use actually looks like
A person asking ChatGPT a question, generating an image, or running a grammar check consumes a negligible amount of resources. A January 2026 analysis by Global Water Intelligence found that 30 minutes of AI use requires approximately 0.16 gallons of water — roughly the volume of a standard water bottle. A single query consumes a fraction of a watt of electricity.
At the individual level AI use has no meaningful physical footprint in any given community. No land is cleared. No generators are installed. No water is withdrawn from a local aquifer.
What enterprise AI infrastructure actually looks like
A single 100 megawatt hyperscale data center — the standard scale of facilities now being proposed across rural Pennsylvania — consumes an average of 528,000 gallons of water per day according to a 2026 analysis drawing on Department of Energy and International Energy Agency data. That is the equivalent daily water use of approximately 6,500 households. Every day. Whether or not a single consumer uses an AI tool that day.
The corporations building these facilities are not responding to individual consumer demand. They are responding to long term enterprise contracts — federal government cloud agreements, Fortune 500 corporate infrastructure, healthcare data systems, financial transaction processing, and defense contractor requirements — worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually.
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google increased data center capital expenditure by 76 percent last year according to Dell’Oro Group data reported by Network World. That growth trajectory predates the consumer AI boom and would continue even if every individual AI user opted out tomorrow.
Why the distinction matters for community advocacy
When advocates are told they forfeit credibility by using AI tools it achieves one outcome: it redirects community energy away from documented corporate accountability and toward internal purity debates.
The communities fighting data center proposals in Pennsylvania — in Penn Forest Township, Archbald Borough, Hazle Township, Cumberland County, and dozens of others — are not fighting AI. They are fighting for independent water monitoring, binding decommissioning plans, enforceable permit conditions, and the right to know what is being built next to their watershed before the vote happens.
Those fights are won with information. Using every available tool to deliver that information responsibly, accurately, and at scale is not hypocrisy. It is a strategy.
Sources: Global Water Intelligence, January 2026 · AIRSYS North America, February 2026 · Dell’Oro Group via Network World 2026 · IEA Data Center Water Consumption Analysis
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