Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

openai.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 242 posts

Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

#211

Post by atleastoptimal »

goatlover wrote: post #177
atleastoptimal wrote: post #114

The main issue with wanting to block data centers in any specific location, is the hyperscalers will just move to building them wherever politics are most favorable. If protesters in your blue state block construction, they'll just build more in red states, giving the red states more leverage in how AI progress continues. If they are blocked across the board in the US, more will be build abroad, in countries that wou…

I'm guessing the people who successfully block construction will be happy the data centers are built elsewhere. I doubt they care that much about AI progress, given the goals of those building the data centers.

> I'm guessing the people who successfully block construction will be happy the data centers are built elsewhere.

Depends on their goals. Do they want to slow down AI altogether, or just hate the concept of the building itself?

Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

#212

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rainsford wrote: post #152
JuniperMesos wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opposing new housing construction is bad in basically the same way that opposing data center construction is bad; and I'm happy to use the same word to describe both groups of people.

There is a much stronger argument for why housing should be built near existing housing than for why data centers need to be built near existing housing. Housing NIMBYs are being unreasonable because if they got their way the only new housing would be built in the middle of nowhere, which is clearly unworkable. Data center NIMBYs are arguing for much the same thing, but focusing on building data centers a good distan…

> Data center NIMBYs are arguing for much the same thing, but focusing on building data centers a good distance away from housing seems pretty reasonable.

The trouble here is that the two things are related. It's easy to build a data center 50 miles outside the city. But because we don't allow higher density housing to be built, they instead have to build low density housing all the way out into what should have been rural land. Then you go outside the city to try to build something and instead of the neighbors being forests or fields of grain it's exurbs.

Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

#213

Post by fzeroracer »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #56
WarmWash wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will run to point to the spate of new nuclear plans, but the point be made here is that nuclear regulation is so suffocating and costs so extreme that it's "effectively illegal" to build reactors.

Is it safety regulation that makes nuclear so hard, or is it just that we can't seem to do large projects of any kind any more?

The US has long gone in the direction of abject mistrust in government agencies, which means large projects are just not feasible. Companies can't pick up the slack either; if they can't build out a new shopping mall without falling over themselves and cutting extreme corners then we shouldn't expect them to handle nuclear power either.

Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

#214

Post by watwut »

micro2588 wrote: post #206
alsetmusic wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's an admin killing clean energy so I think we know where that anger belongs. Dems suck too, but what can you do. One is worse, clearly.

As much as I wish it were different I think this would be the outcome under any administration. Natural gas in the USA is just stupidly cheap inflation adjusted, is energy dense, power plants require few land resources, pipeline infrastructure exists, robust and deep supply chain, etc. I don't hold much hope of the USA kicking the habit as it is such a competitive advantage. If we don't burn it locally it will be exp…

Biden was not paying companies to NOT build windplants.

No, the result would not be the same. Provably so.

Also, in fact, companies turned to Trump because democrats started to be serious about anti trust actions.

Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

#215

Post by watwut »

cpburns2009 wrote: post #188
goatlover wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infrastructure for what? To push AI, crypto and gambling on everyone? How about build this "infrastructure" in the back yards of billionaires? They should have plenty of land.

There's a 100% chance this very website you're arguing on is hosted in one if not more data centers.

Oh please, running this site does not require any of these data centers. Nor new power plants.

Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

#216

Post by watwut »

qarl2 wrote: post #100
boston_clone wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that the issues deserve the same attention, or are you perhaps making a false equivalence? As far as I’m aware, children aren’t being shot in the head and forcibly starved by an occupying force in Cuba. But to say that folks don’t care is clearly inaccurate.

I am making the fairly obvious point that Americans don't care about the Cubans like they did the Palestinians, despite the fact that the Cubans are directly suffering under the Americans, and in the case of the Palestinians it was indirect.

It is not really indirect, USA supports that genocide openly, polically and with arms.

But even more importantly, the care is result of years and years of leftist activism. Nothing to do with china, judt that awarness dont happen overnight.

Yours "if you are not active in absolutely everything, any action is invalid" is just a bad faith nonsense.

Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

#217

Post by consumer451 »

cortesoft wrote: post #94
mcmcmc wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems you’ve rustled some jimmies. I’ve always thought effective altruism was a nice way to rationalize insatiable greed.

It has the exact same appeal and pitfalls as utilitarianism

Isn't EA an offshoot of utilitarianism? Honest question. I always thought it was.

Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

#218

Post by rayiner »

aceazzameen wrote: post #200
rayiner wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need infrastructure. Data centers are infrastructure.

The world and its people would continue to thrive if AI data centers magically vanished tomorrow. They are not necessary infrastructure. They're only necessary for wall street right now.

Sure, but we’re going to thrive more because of AI, just as we thrived more because of the Internet, cell phones, etc.

Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

#219

Post by alistairSH »

jwlake wrote: post #192
alistairSH wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visit Loudoun County VA and get back to me. Virginia mostly used by-right zoning, which treated data centers like just another office block. The result is linked below. Those cranes in the back of photo 2 are building yet another data center. Loudoun recently changed the zoning laws to end by-right development of data centers, but it's a bit too little, too late. Yes, some of those homes predate the data centers. Yes…

Unzoned means industrial. A slaughterhouse is MUCH worse than living next to a data center. If you want it zoned residential only do that.

It's isn't unzoned. It's zoned commercial. In VA, data centers are considered commercial, so allowed to be built by-right in existing commercial zones. Loudoun Co just updated their local zoning to override this and require re-zoning/approvals. (at least this is my understanding of the situation).

So, you buy a house, and think a small office park or strip mall might get built next door. Instead, it's a 6 story block that looks like the Borg, belches exhaust from on-site generators, and buzzes constantly making you think you have tinnitus or something.

Re: Letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

#220

Post by noir_lord »

consumer451 wrote: post #217
cortesoft wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has the exact same appeal and pitfalls as utilitarianism

Isn't EA an offshoot of utilitarianism? Honest question. I always thought it was.

Consequentialism and to an extent Utilitarianism (since one is a subset of the other, it sometimes feels like philosophy is more concerned with naming things than explaining them but from the bit I've read those are the two biggest precursors).

AKA It's fine if I do locally horrible things if in aggregate I do more good than bad*

* by whatever metric of good I self select for - terms & conditions apply, much CO2 may be released.

Post reply on HN