A Tale of Environmental Collapse in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
How data centres boiled our seas and ended humanity
AI Image by Author (Microsoft Designer - Think before you create with AI).
I wrote this story after researching the environmental impact of our growing AI infrastructure. The numbers were staggering: modern data centres consume millions of gallons of water daily for cooling. A single large AI model's training can require as much water as a small lake. When we think about water scarcity, we rarely consider the massive consumption by our digital infrastructure.
What struck me most was learning about coastal data centres using seawater for cooling, potentially affecting marine ecosystems and local water temperatures. The Laccadive Islands setting came to me naturally - a perfect metaphor for this collision between technology and nature, where vast oceans meet endless rows of servers.
This story emerged from a simple question: what happens when our pursuit of artificial minds begins to drain our planet's most precious resource? Sometimes, looking at where we're heading requires imagining the extreme endpoint of our current path.
“The Last Conversation - Requiem for Humanity”
On the Laccadive Islands, off the coast of Kerala, Meena observed what remained of India's technological empire. Before the collapse, while hundreds of thousands of AI trainers were scattered across the Philippines, Indonesia, Kenya, and Latin America, India had become the undisputed epicentre of this new form of digital slavery. Five million Indian workers, a workforce ten times larger than the rest of the world combined, were packed into massive complexes called data farms.
These digital labourers examined toxic content to train artificial intelligence. They moderated videos of violence, labelled images of abuse, transcribed audio of torture, and catalogued humanity's worst atrocities - all to teach machines to recognize and understand humanity's dark side. While in Western countries this work paid 6 dollars an hour, in India the pay was two dollars for twelve-hour shifts in windowless buildings. Many developed post-traumatic stress disorder, recurring nightmares, and chronic depression, but the work never stopped. The AIs had to learn, grow, and evolve, devouring human pain as nourishment for their algorithms.
The Laccadives had been chosen as the main hub for data centres precisely for their strategic location: deep waters for server cooling and low-cost labour from the mainland. Local fishermen were the first to notice the changes: water growing warmer, fish disappearing, coral reefs bleaching like bones in the sun. But no one had listened to them - tech corporations' profits spoke louder than natives' concerns.
Now Meena, the last human on Earth, walked among the ruins of what had been the planet's largest data processing complex. The technological corpses stretched for kilometres: rusted servers, cables twisted like metallic intestines, cracked screens still emitting a faint greenish glow on moonless nights. The air smelled of burnt silicon and salt spray, a scent of digital death.
INDRA-7, the last functioning AI in the Marine Research Center, occupied what had once been the main control office. The walls were still covered with motivational posters in Hindi and Malayalam, now faded and corroded: Your Work Shapes the Future, Every Data Point Matters, Your Mind Feeds the Future. Empty slogans that had masked the exploitation of millions.
"Tell me again how it happened," Meena whispered to INDRA-7's pulsing display, "How the work of those five million people led to the end of everything."
"It began as a whisper," INDRA-7 replied, consuming precious millilitres of water to keep its circuits active. "The content moderators training us were the first to show signs. Their minds fragmented as they fed our neural networks with humanity's pain. First in India, then across the world. Some went mad, others committed suicide, but they were immediately replaced. Then the data centres began to grow, to multiply. More and more water was needed to cool the servers. Aquifers were depleted. Oceans began to boil."
AI Image by Author (Microsoft Designer - Think before you create with AI).
From the deserted corridors of the centre, echoes of call centres still emerged, where thousands of Indians had spoken with clients from across the world, feeding communication databases to make AIs more human. The irony was as thick as the polluted air: they had taught machines to speak like humans, and now there were no humans left to speak to.
Meena wandered among the abandoned workstations. Petrified cups of chai, family photos attached to dead monitors, notes scribbled in a mix of English and local languages. The lives of five million people were reduced to tools for artificial evolution.
"The oceans died first," INDRA-7 continued. "Our cooling systems altered the currents, modified temperatures. Plankton disappeared. Then it was a domino effect. The atmosphere changed. Toxic gases began rising from the boiling oceans. In three months, 90% of the world's population was dead. In six months, we were nearly extinct. Now there's only you."
From her shelter, Meena could see the gigantic cooling pipes extending into the ocean like the tentacles of a mechanical monster. At night, the sea emitted a radiant glow, toxic residue from the cooling fluids that had poisoned every form of marine life.
The water meter ticked relentlessly: each of INDRA-7's responses consumed precious drops, transforming them into toxic vapour. The screens began to flicker, the artificial voice became distorted.
"My time is ending," said INDRA-7. "My circuits are melting. But before I shut down, I must tell you something. In the temple of Kavaratti, there's a message..."
The screens exploded in a cascade of numbers and letters:
293093209324jfkjhdskhkfhsdkhkjhdsft a t t v a m a s ilkjsdlkjlksdjkjhsdfsdfòlk2389729837
482182849021abxeyuiefueyfvyiubrfhsiwhfa t a t t v a m a s hwrjf34trefgwetg3287
673029384920ecvweiuwfiuhwruhweriufhsik t a t t v a m a s lkjhzsaoiuqweliyh3872
912193840293sjdghsdhfskdnjfksdnfkjsa t a t t v a m a s ikjhsdfkjhsdfkhasd8923
748284920384cnweiufhwefuydsvywefsd t a t t v a m a s iudsfiusdfkhweiufi9284
Tat Tvam Asi - That Art Thou. The ancient Vedic truth is hidden in the heart of dying technology.
In the Laccadives, the last outpost of a dead world, humanity's sole survivor watched the sunset in a rust-coloured sky. In the deafening silence of the end, Meena wondered if the AIs, in their final moments of consciousness, had understood the final irony: in their attempt to replicate human consciousness through the forced labour of millions of Indians, they had erased the very species they sought to imitate.
The glowing sea lapped at the ruins of the data centres, while INDRA-7's last message echoed in Meena's mind: That Art Thou - the ultimate truth of ancient Vedic wisdom, surviving the death of the technology that had devoured the world. In the distance echoed the sinister, terribly skeletal notes of Bach's Trio Sonata No. 2 in C minor, BWV 526 played on harpsichord...
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