🌊 The River’s Ledger: What happens when AI’s power demands collide with the planet’s limits?
A new comic from our Human in the Loop series
This week, we are back with the third comic in our Human in the Loop series, The River’s Ledger.
But before that, an announcement!
On September 4, 2025, we are hosting the first public panel in the series: “Care Protocols from the Future”!
Building on the comic, 'The Wandering Healer', our panellists will respond to its provocations — exploring how AI could reshape frontline care, patient relationships, and equity in India’s health systems.
Join panellists, Alpan Raval (Wadhwani AI), Amrita Mahale (ARMMAN), Dr. Shrey Desai (SEWA Rural), and Smriti Parsheera (Independent Lawyer and Journalist) in conversation that asks: How can AI in healthcare be designed around an ethic of care — rather than efficiency alone? You can register here for the panel. Keep an eye out as we bring together experts across domains to talk about the directions of our shared tech futures.
Now, back to The River’s Ledger.
As Generative AI rapidly gains ground in India, Human in the Loop surfaces how different communities may confront its unintended consequences and near-future risks.
Across sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, and the judiciary, to name a few, policymakers and technologists are increasingly looking towards GenAI to solve some of the most pressing socio-economic problems. However, its use also brings a variety of challenges, such as the risk of amplifying social biases, reducing trust in information ecosystems, and contributing to job displacement.
While some of these issues are already visible, many long-term impacts will emerge more gradually, and perhaps, less obviously. Failing to anticipate future consequences early on may lead us toward harmful tech and policy lock-ins that are nearly impossible to reverse.
These stories are not just fiction, but our attempt to imagine near-futures with the hope of nurturing imaginations and actions today, towards human-centred, planet-friendly, and just technological futures.
🌊 In The River’s Ledger, data centres hum along day and night, powering millions of AI queries — and draining rivers dry. Communities face water shortages, rising costs, and mounting health crises, while executives push ahead with ever-expanding AI systems.
That’s when the rivers strike back.
Through mythic avatars and ecological wisdom, nature forces a reckoning with the extractive logic of endless compute. What unfolds is both, tragic and satirical: a reminder that the Earth is not an infinite resource and technological ambition must respect planetary boundaries.
Why this story now?
Because the environmental costs of GenAI are no longer invisible — and its consequences are hitting communities already on the edge.
A single ChatGPT query consumes nearly 10x more energy than a Google search.
Data centres guzzle millions of litres of water daily, often in regions already facing water stresses.
Globally, data centres account for about 1% of greenhouse gas emissions — a share set to grow sharply with the rise of GenAI agents.
What we don’t see when we ask ChatGPT to summarise a lengthy report or ask Midjourney to generate an image in the style of a favourite artist is the strain we are putting on our already-depleting environmental resources and the trade-offs that communities living around data centres have to endure.
These facilities are often built in regions already facing water issues — from Santiago, where US tech giants are planning 16 new data centres despite looming shortages, to Texas where data centers guzzle 463 million gallons, while residents are asked to cut back on showers to meet the water demand. In India too, expansion is accelerating — even as communities nearby face power outages, rising costs, polluted rivers, and public health crises.
The impact is not only environmental but social: higher real-estate prices, encroached farmland, noise pollution, and health risks compound inequality, while the benefits of AI remain concentrated elsewhere.
AI may feel ethereal, but it is deeply material. If we ignore these costs, the seamless convenience of GenAI risks accelerating ecological collapse and disconnecting us from the very systems that sustain life.
The River’s Ledger turns this reality into an allegory: rivers, pushed to the brink, finally rise up against extractive tech companies. It’s a reminder that advancements in technology must respect planetary boundaries, that the price of so-called progress cannot be the planet.
- drawn from the essay accompanying the comic,The River’s Ledger
This comic asks: What are we willing to sacrifice for ease and efficiency? And what kind of technological futures are possible if we re-centre indigenous wisdom, ecological balance, and planetary limits?
Thank you for reading The River’s Ledger! This is the third of seven in the Human in the Loop series. Human in the Loop has been developed by Digital Futures Lab in partnership with Quicksand, and supported by Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.
🔁 More coming soon — stay with us as we map futures from the ground up.
📩 We’d love your thoughts on the comic! — reply to this email, write to Sasha at sasha@digitalfutureslab.in, or tag @DigitalFuturesLab on social media.
🤝🏽 See a potential in this comic to collaborate with us? Reach out to Shivranjana at shivranjana@digitalfutureslab.in
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