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Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

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Re: Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

#81
post #20
post #13

So what does one of these full time data center jobs look like, day to day? If I’m a software engineer I feel like I’d have to move and get a pay decrease to actually work at one of these? I mean until AI finally puts me out of a job. I guess I wouldn’t really be qualified to work one of these jobs?

If you've never had an opportunity to spend time in a datacenter as a software developer, that's unfortunate but also far too common. What things look like on the inside vary company to company. Generally you're in an OSHA-abiding environment, so safety shoes, ear and eye protection, sometimes gloves. There's a variety of roles. Security, electricians, HVAC engineers, generally some type of site foreman-ask role, log…

> Big big shops have "dumbed down" troubleshooting as much as they can - for a lot of reasons. You don't have to pay folks as much because they're thinking and doing less, the more time they spend troubleshooting the longer the server is offline, and if there's no troubleshooting there's not much for them to screw up.

Very true. I've heard stories of how technicians struggle with friends/family perceptions here. Since a lot of these datacenters are in rural communities, they are perceived as being technical wizards to be working there. But in reality they are doing as you say - just following a preprogrammed script with very little scope for any sort of creative problem solving.

Re: Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

#82

All the compute being built out is very impressive and it's nice to think it could be used to further science, further our understanding, just in some way for the greater good. But I think mostly it will be used to serve ads.

In the 10 years prior to like 2023, any new large scale data center build-out was explicitly for serving more ads. Meanwhile, now that we have a new tech that's literally solving unsolved math problems, we're suddenly doomers. Why?

> that's literally solving unsolved math problems,

It is extremely hard to imagine that the world where this amount of money going into actual research tools and researchers wouldn’t give vastly better results.

Building a nuclear powered shovel to dig a grave would work but it doesn’t mean it is a sensible thing to do

Re: Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

#83
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no frame of reference, Donny. I'm guessing you have no conception of what the world used to be like before 9/11. Back then, the news was reported, and people got outraged at things. Sure, there was injustice then too, and all wars are a racket, but there were still standards of morals. Today, you have a level of corruption in all things that is beyond the imagination, out in the open; and it is out in the op…

You have to admit-- it is interesting that all of this media, that was made during a time when there were standards and morals, has painted such a clear picture of what you now expect life to be like.

It's speculative fiction after all.

Re: Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

#84
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular take I know. But ads are a source of revenue for much of the free and open internet. The alternatives are paid features that are a regressive tax on poorer people who can't afford them or fork up larger amounts of their discretionary budget. While popups and bad ad practices have always been a problem, it's sad to see that they became so bad that the response to them is to paygate web content. More and more…

Ads create a terribly perverse incentive to increase users viewing time on platforms. It's the whole reason most of the internet has become so horrible. My email provider doesn't try to drive up my engagement because they have no incentive for me to use the product more than I naturally want to. I'd also be willing to bet that the current ad funded system ends up costing the average person more than just paying for s…

The free option with libraries was somewhat limited because libraries rarely had more than a small number of copies of a given book or newspaper.

Saying people with higher income bought for convenience is understating the situation. If you needed timely access to books or newspapers that were in high demand you often had to buy out of necessity.

I'm not sure how a similar thing would work the internet. How do you limit the number of people that can use the free version? If you don't the people who could pay largely won't.

The only idea I've heard that might work is to just make it free for everyone, but put a tax on something that correlates somewhat with use, and divvy up that tax to the sites based on their traffic.

That then raises questions like what to tax and how to divvy it up since simply dividing it proportionally to traffic probably would not work well (Richard Stallman has suggesed such a system, with the split based on the cube root of popularity).

Re: Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 10 years prior to like 2023, any new large scale data center build-out was explicitly for serving more ads. Meanwhile, now that we have a new tech that's literally solving unsolved math problems, we're suddenly doomers. Why?

Because it's pretty evident that all these data centers are primarily intended to eliminate jobs and make more trillionaires and destroy democracy, and the positive stuff (like solving unsolved math problems) doesn't remotely justify that.

[flagged]

Re: Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 10 years prior to like 2023, any new large scale data center build-out was explicitly for serving more ads. Meanwhile, now that we have a new tech that's literally solving unsolved math problems, we're suddenly doomers. Why?

The sheer size of and resource consumption to build and operate them. Most people can't really understand the numbers in question due to their size. It's like that picture of 1 million dollars in $100's stacked up on a pallet, then 1 billion and 1 trillion. But instead of worthless paper, it is consuming huge swaths of the limited fresh water on the planet, creating the largest natural gas power plants in the world,…

It’s clear you don’t know what you’re talking about. Data centers don’t use water.

Re: Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's pretty evident that all these data centers are primarily intended to eliminate jobs and make more trillionaires and destroy democracy, and the positive stuff (like solving unsolved math problems) doesn't remotely justify that.

[flagged]

Can you proof them wrong?

Re: Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

#88

All the compute being built out is very impressive and it's nice to think it could be used to further science, further our understanding, just in some way for the greater good. But I think mostly it will be used to serve ads.

In the 10 years prior to like 2023, any new large scale data center build-out was explicitly for serving more ads. Meanwhile, now that we have a new tech that's literally solving unsolved math problems, we're suddenly doomers. Why?

> now that we have a new tech that's literally solving unsolved math problems, we're suddenly doomers. Why?

Because it’s easy. It’s free to post internet comments. The doomers have the lowest effort take so they’re very prominent. People doing things are too busy doing things to post doomer comments.

Re: Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's pretty evident that all these data centers are primarily intended to eliminate jobs and make more trillionaires and destroy democracy, and the positive stuff (like solving unsolved math problems) doesn't remotely justify that.

Everyone on this site has been cashing checks building the job eating machine for years. The concern is only pouring out now that it may not need us anymore.

I am not against AI but putting automation tools is in a different category than "AGI, you only need specs and they do the work for you".

20 years ago even with automation etc you needed armies of people to make something work. It was more of a transformation of the type of work. Look at the amount of work Amazon as a company has created. It changed how people buy stuff etc, but behind the scenes there is always human workforce, to deliver, to invent the recommendation algorithms, to package the items, etc (although here there is heavy automation).

Now the idea is that we need AI so we can replace humans, so "people can spend more time on what they like to do". Which is what, searching for jobs on LinkedIn?

Re: Amazon Announces Multibillion-Dollar Data Center in Missouri

#90
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most new builds don't even use evaporative cooling afaik, this will probably be closed loop. The implications being you're not risking the local water table and overall consumption is lower, a lot lower.

What percentage of new builds are using closed loop cooling? I've seen this pop data center "fact" thrown around, but with no data to back it up.

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