麻豆社

If you spend much time on social media, and we don鈥檛 necessarily recommend it, then you鈥檝e probably come across a strange fascination with water consumption.

Mainly, this is people telling you that using AI is terrible for the planet because of how much water it uses. We鈥檝e already made a couple of programmes about the numbers in those arguments and, long story short, they probably aren鈥檛 saying what you think they鈥檙e saying.

But on platforms like X, BlueSky, and TikTok, an opportunity to keep an argument going is rarely missed.

And one of the numbers that鈥檚 been enlisted in that glorious cause concerns the water that鈥檚 used for a seemingly unrelated past-time - eating beef. Here鈥檚 an example from a user on X:

鈥淎 kilogram of beef requires over 15,000 litres of water to produce,鈥� they wrote. 鈥淎 vegan who uses ChatGPT every day is living a more sustainable lifestyle than someone who regularly eats beef while boycotting AI.鈥�

Ignoring the AI part, is that true? Does it actually take 15,000 litres of water to produce a kilogram of beef?

It turns out that the number isn鈥檛 wrong, but it probably isn鈥檛 saying what you think it鈥檚 saying.

If you鈥檝e seen a number you think we should take a look at, email the More or Less team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk

CONTRIBUTORS:
Mesfin Mekonnen, Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama
Mark Mulligan, Professor of Physical and Environmental Geography at King's College London
Tim Hess, Professor of Water and Food Systems at Cranfield University

CREDITS:
Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Producer: Mhairi MacKenzie
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Emma Harth
Editor: Richard Vadon

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