Water and AI

The Water and AI panel brings together four speakers with different answers to a simple question: What is water?

For Tiah Ross-Butner, a UC Berkeley student and enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe, water is family. For Sheena Conforti, a Stanford researcher who studies wastewater and public health, water carries information about community health. For Lance Legel, a UC Berkeley visiting scientist who uses AI to study ecosystems, water is a resource we need to understand more deeply. For Greg Niemeyer, a UC Berkeley professor and data artist, water is circulation. For Vivien Slagle, a UC Berkeley student studying art, anthropology, and law, water is a shared resource under competing demands from agriculture, data centers, and living systems.

Water also helps make AI possible. Many data centers use water for cooling, and producing the electricity they consume can require additional water. Together, the panelists will explore how their cultures and practices shape the ways we understand and talk about water, and how these conversations can support sustainable water management. What is water? How can we talk across our differences? And where can we find common ground?