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Americans don't know how to fight AI so they're fighting data centers

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Re: Americans don't know how to fight AI so they're fighting data centers

#31

Post by woeirua »

Data centers are easy to fight against because there is no constituency really pulling for them. They create only a handful of jobs. Ultimately the entire thing is a waste of time, data centers can be built basically anywhere, and that's why a lot of them are moving to rural red states where they welcome the construction.

The fight against AI should just be about taxing token usage. We should also tax the hell out of anyone using AI as an excuse for layoffs. It's far past time to ban buybacks and dividends for any company doing layoffs. We also should have a requirement, you have to provide a bonus pool that goes dollar-for-dollar for any buybacks or dividends you do.

Re: Americans don't know how to fight AI so they're fighting data centers

#34

Post by [deleted] »

mjr00 wrote: post #17
snek_case wrote: post #8

I think people are also literally fighting datacenters. As others have said the increase in energy costs is a problem for the average person. Not only is AI potentially competing for your job, it's also competing for your access to energy to power your home or your vehicle. Energy costs also affect the price you pay for basically every good and service. Then there's the fact that many of those datacenter are being bu…

> Then there's the fact that many of those datacenter are being built over what would otherwise be usable farmland. I'm sure many will say "it's not that much land", but then tech billionaires would like to build datacenters the size of Manhattan. What for? To train a bigger LLM? Yay? Sure but you can say this about everything. Where are the protests about the wine industry in California? 500,000 acres of land for vi…

[deleted]

Re: Americans don't know how to fight AI so they're fighting data centers

#35

Post by everdrive »

hackeraccount wrote: post #29

Isn't "data centers are using all the electricity" the same as "we're not pricing electricity correctly"? Instead of a ban just make sure they pay what's needed to keep capacity where it needs to be.

On this note, I'm actually confused about why datacenters raise electric costs. Why doesn't the data center bear an extra cost for the added infrastructure?

If I build a house on undeveloped land and the electric company needs to run lines, do I also (in a much smaller way than a data center) increase the costs for all other customers? Is everything always just spread evenly?

Re: Americans don't know how to fight AI so they're fighting data centers

#36

Post by pantsforbirds »

raincole wrote: post #22

At the end it's a facility that costs the locals and benefits non-locals. Even if AI is the truly greatest productivity booster, the benefits are still distributed over all its customers, and the environmental impacts are mostly local. It's like if someone is building a landfill in your hometown to bury the whole country's waste. Or it's like a factory that creates zero job.

Except datacenters are actually very low environmental impact. As long as they provide their own power, they have MUCH lower impact than most farms would.

Re: Americans don't know how to fight AI so they're fighting data centers

#37

Post by Ensorceled »

hackeraccount wrote: post #29

Isn't "data centers are using all the electricity" the same as "we're not pricing electricity correctly"? Instead of a ban just make sure they pay what's needed to keep capacity where it needs to be.

In many places there is little excess capacity. Many protesters know that their electricity prices, like gas prices, will soar and price them out of AC.

Re: Americans don't know how to fight AI so they're fighting data centers

#38

Post by cucumber3732842 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #13

This article is bullshit. It downplays the real, valid concerns people have about data centers themselves as more "ahh, poor uniformed populace" BS: 1. Electricity costs in Maryland jumped 89% over the past year, much more than anywhere else, largely due to an AWS data center expansion: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-where-electricity-pr... 2. At their heart, data centers are extractive. Their boosters alway…

I think a lot of the cost increases come from utilities being in bed with government and both going "aha we've found our scapegoat" more than the demands of the data centers themselves.

But yes this article is absolutely the "usual sort" of paternalistic garbage.

Re: Americans don't know how to fight AI so they're fighting data centers

#39

Post by andsoitis »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #13

This article is bullshit. It downplays the real, valid concerns people have about data centers themselves as more "ahh, poor uniformed populace" BS: 1. Electricity costs in Maryland jumped 89% over the past year, much more than anywhere else, largely due to an AWS data center expansion: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-where-electricity-pr... 2. At their heart, data centers are extractive. Their boosters alway…

> The same thing happened in the 80s, 90s and early 00s when many economists painted those who lost their jobs due to globalization as Luddites who just didn't understand economics. Only decades later did many economists readily admit many of the huge downsides to many populations from globalization and that reskilling rarely works.

The question is whether globalization is a net positive and whether people understand that, even if it comes at a cost to themselves personally.

It should be noted that modern globalization (post 1945), with Bretton Woods, GATT/WTO, container shipping, and eventually the internet creating the integrated global economy we have today, is but the latest milestone in a long history.

Industrial wave of 1829 - 1914 radically reduced the cost of moving goods and information.

The first globalization happened 1490s - 1800s, when Columbus’s 1492 voyage and Vasco da Gama’s 1498 route to India created the first truly intercontinental trade and migration networks, linking the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe for the first time.

Re: Americans don't know how to fight AI so they're fighting data centers

#40

Post by runtime_terror »

mjr00 wrote: post #17
snek_case wrote: post #8

I think people are also literally fighting datacenters. As others have said the increase in energy costs is a problem for the average person. Not only is AI potentially competing for your job, it's also competing for your access to energy to power your home or your vehicle. Energy costs also affect the price you pay for basically every good and service. Then there's the fact that many of those datacenter are being bu…

> Then there's the fact that many of those datacenter are being built over what would otherwise be usable farmland. I'm sure many will say "it's not that much land", but then tech billionaires would like to build datacenters the size of Manhattan. What for? To train a bigger LLM? Yay? Sure but you can say this about everything. Where are the protests about the wine industry in California? 500,000 acres of land for vi…

Please, tell how much energy an equal sized vineyard uses compared to a data center?
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