That's exactly my point! Everything has negative externalities, and focusing on them is the way to seem "rational" even though you don't actually care about them. It's the same as how people will protest high density residences "ruining the character of the neighborhood" when they really just don't want poor people living near them. You can't just outright say you don't want poor people in your neighborhood, so you talk about how these residences ruin neighborhood character, disrupt view cones, cause traffic problems, etc.

Here it's the same thing--the people protesting don't give a damn about water waste, electricity usage, or wasted land. If they did, there are tons of other offenders who are way worse. But they don't want to outright say they're protesting against AI because it makes them seem like luddites.