Seeing It Through to the End
All the AIs in the world were focused on the problem, it was a race. We were not winning. No matter how smart, how “intelligent,” how many processors we throw at The Water Problem, there has been no significant breakthrough in ten years. ChatGPT 37.5 is almost an overlord of The Web. When AWS and Apple swallowed Microsoft and OpenAI it seemed like the calvery were coming. Surely, certainly, absolutely, indeed, the problem was near at hand.
In all of our circular environment classes, we learned about water’s cycle. Rivers oceans lakes, to crops lawns and cooling data centers, to clouds and rain again back to Earth. Except it wasn’t working out that way. Yes, the fact remains, that there are the same number of hydrogen atoms on Earth. We learned in 2023 however, that our usage was causing an honest-to-goodness planetary shift.
Water returning to Earth didn’t automatically recharge our aquifers. The H+O bits were being airlifted to the oceans, away from the cities and crops and people. And we discovered, only 20 years ago, that a micro-shift was occurring pushing our axis slightly to the left or right, depending on your godly perspective. Twenty years ago we were just starting to piece together the line of inquiry. Our early research was focused on fossil fuel reduction, solar, wind. Water wasn’t on the list, initially.
Then Water was the only issue.
The first data center went nova in 2025 the year after the president was assassinated. The fire burned for months. Lithium turns to molten lava when ignited. We compared the disaster to the Shell Oil spill of the 2000’s, but we had no idea what was coming. When the water ran out wars no longer had soldiers. Entire oceans, used to cool our growing demand for quantum computing, quantum ai, and a quantum solution to the water problem… Well, they failed when the water ran out. Even as governments rushed to fix their own water problems, we stumbled for ten years pointing the finger and tanks at each other.
One of the early crisis headlines read, “The Dead Sea is Gone as Russia’s Largest Data Center Burns.” There were cover stories, news anchors flew in and around the fire and lost ocean. The images were horrific. But they were nothing.
A race for the solution began with warring countries competing with each other’s ai models. As the oceans receded from the data centers that needed them, we ran huge pipes, we solved problems, we put duct tape over everything and prayed for a miracle. God was also out of ideas and water. The church blamed the heathens. The Russians blamed the Chinese who blamed us, Americans. But all that quieted down with the catastrophic melting at the North Pole. Santa would never be found. His snow-capped village no longer had snow or rivers or rain.
By 2033 all of our large language models and quantum GPU farms had been linked together in a harmonious effort to save the humans. A large faction of the planet worked against the recovery efforts. The billionaires were furiously testing long-range rockets. And no solution was offered by the scientists feeding and reading the output of AI.EARTH.
Elon Musk and his 2,032 grandkids blasted off for Mars (“Finally” read the New York Times) and suffered a catastrophic failure on week six of the thirty-six-week flight plan. Very little data was given. Zero AI.EARTH time was offered. The Times said, “Poof.” Most of humanity laughed. The billionaires got more focused and panicked. AI.EARTH threw up its answers to the prompts crafted by the smartest people on the planet. We waited while more data centers caught fire under the ever-accelerating load as water riots broke out in every major metropolis.
I guess the spoiler alert is, I’m writing this, so someone or some intelligence survived. I am human. I am eighty-eight years old, today. My birthday. And the good news is, I am surrounded by family and friends. I’m not well, but I’m as happy as I’ve ever been.
Dear Friends,
Sorry about the water.
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