Jason Kelce Joins Satirical Campaign Against AI Water Usage

The campaign features Kelce performing a song that calls for “endless gallons of pee” to be shipped to data centers, accompanied by scenes of crowds hauling jars to the post office. Despite the disclaimer urging viewers not to actually mail their waste, the satire addresses a legitimate ecological friction point. Research funded by the Department of Energy estimates that U.S. data centers consumed 66 billion liters of water, with projections suggesting local water systems may require up to $58 billion in infrastructure upgrades by 2030 to keep pace.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has pushed back against these environmental concerns, labeling claims about high water usage per query as “totally insane.” During the India AI Impact Summit, Altman argued that the focus should remain on energy availability rather than water, advocating for a rapid transition to nuclear, wind, and solar power. He also dismissed comparisons between AI efficiency and human biological needs, suggesting that once models are trained, their energy output per query is already competitive with human cognition.