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Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

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Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#291

Post by yellowapple »

gortok wrote: post #16
chasd00 wrote: post #7

No one ever cared about DCs before now. I think there’s a lot of social media influence from nation state competitors going on to try and slow SOTA development in the US. Ironically, There’s enough issues with the DC buildout going on that even with 100% public opinion support it would still be significantly delayed. The behind the meter power generation isn’t going well. There’s only so many gas fired turbines on th…

> I think there’s a lot of social media influence from nation state competitors going on to try and slow SOTA development in the US. This comes cross as unbelievable, and at worst a fantastical statement, as someone who lives in Northern Virginia and is effectively watching the Datacenter battle unfold from the front lines, and dealing with the local politics and electricity costs rising at a precipitous rate. Our el…

> those that want data centers are doing their damndest to somehow claim that they’re not responsible for the rise in the cost of utilities and shouldn’t be held responsible for it

Because they're not. That's a utility billing issue. The power company can charge residential customers lower rates than it does commercial/industrial customers. If it's not doing that, then you're better off taking it up with them (or quite possibly: whichever regulatory body is hindering their ability to do that).

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#292

Post by yellowapple »

fragmede wrote: post #49
RajT88 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're building a mass of DC's near me as well in northern IL (not quite as many as by you). I see a lot of weird stuff on social media - people inactive for years all of a sudden becoming super-activists and posting non-stop anti-DC content. Nearly identical content to what's being pushed by a bunch of faceless accounts named like "Water4All","Nature Reign" - something vaguely environmental sounding. Talking points…

It's almost as if Russia or China wants to see America not succeed.

And at least one of those two countries is also building datacenters in droves and would have a vested interest in hindering foreign competition.

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#293

Post by yellowapple »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #88
adamrezich wrote: post #74

The other day I was talking with two friends—one programmer, one musician, both of fairly conservative political persuasion—and the topic of “AI data centers” came up. I said something to the effect of, “y'know, all that talk about how they just use all up all the water from wherever they're built is total propaganda nonsense, right?” and both were genuinely taken aback by this statement. As far as they were concerne…

Your two friends are factually correct. You somehow misinterpret how much water they consume. https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-water-usage

If every American skipped a single burger per year, that'd entirely offset the combined water use of all American datacenters.

Datacenters, in other words, do not consume all that much water in the grand scheme of things. There are many, many better targets if water conservation is a genuine concern.

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#294

Post by neutronicus »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #250
neutronicus wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also doesn't necessarily matter if the data centers actually raise electricity rates. Regardless of whether or not they do, you can block their construction and try to horse-trade it for relief on energy prices.

>It also doesn't necessarily matter if the data centers actually raise electricity rates. >Regardless of whether or not they do, you can block their construction and try to horse-trade it for relief on energy prices. So in other words burn the credibility and reputation of whatever you're using for that purpose so you can pull a quick "fuck you got mine" to the tune of several cents per kwh off your bill. That sort o…

I don’t think “fuck you I’ve got mine” is an apt characterization of people struggling to afford their heating bill.

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#296

Post by I-M-S »

titanomachy wrote: post #240
I-M-S wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these things have been vehemently opposed by NIMBYs: 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapleRidge/comments/1ewgim0/maple_r... 2. https://nationalpost.com/life/the-important-questions-is-it-... 3. https://jeremyl.substack.com/p/nimbytales-stop-the-sound-of-... 4. https://torontolife.com/city/this-corner-store-owner-spent-y...

I don’t think any of these examples represent _successful_ opposition, though. Except maybe the warming center for homeless people? I can’t tell if it got built or not. These examples basically amount to “some people didn’t like this”, which doesn’t mean that the balance of public opinion wasn’t favourable. Unanimous support is too high a bar.

A handful of vocal voices can delay a project, raise its cost, and make it untenable.

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#297

Post by trollbridge »

cpburns2009 wrote: post #72
trollbridge wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that? I can't think of any bread bakeries pulling 2.2 gigawatts, which is us-east-1 pulls.

If you're complaining about us-east-1, you either moved into its backyard or didn't know it existed there for 20 years.

I’m in -3’s future backyard, but -1 has been there a while and is kind of the archetype of what a gigawatt facility looks like (the 2.2GW is spread across quite a few AZs, to be fair).

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#298

Post by AuthAuth »

linkjuice4all wrote: post #32
nixon_why69 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its a proxy for general populist sentiment. "These AI people are getting rich selling unicorn farts while I'm on the same pay and everything is more expensive, fuck them".

It’s more than one thing. Yes there’s definitely some populism and maybe some astroturfing from outside groups - but actual electricity costs are going up and the average consumer can’t really get anymore efficient, so they’re indirectly subsidizing this stuff. Computers and related hardware have gone up in price. And then you’ve got all of the “AI layoffs” that also result in real-world pain. Ignore at your own peri…

American electricity costs a very low. What they've gone up is nothing its a drop in the bucket compared to the damage from the tariffs and middle east war. Populists settle on this issue because its malicious. They are Accelerationists

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#299

Post by lotsofpulp »

ThunderBee wrote: post #245
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average person around them knows quite a bit about the noise level, and how far it carries. Do they? How much noise do you imagine comes from a data center that isn't operating a gas turbine?

I believe there’s been a number of investigative journalists/ YouTubers that have looked into this and it can be quite staggering. Not just human audible noise but infrasound and ultrasound as well. IIRC Ben Jordan’s video “ Datacenters Behaving Like Acoustic Weapons” would probably be a good place to start. They could build these data centers to eliminate the noise but it’s cheaper to ruin the livability of surround…

>I believe there’s been a number of investigative journalists/ YouTubers that have looked into this and it can be quite staggering.

The only thing staggering is the amount of trust placed in "YouTubers".

Re: Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers

#300

Post by JuniperMesos »

Teever wrote: post #257
kranke155 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why they’re doing this? Is extending the grid to their shiny new DC so expensive they’d rather build on top or right next to housing? Is it the water supply ? I don’t understand why someone would do something so clearly self defeating

Anytime you see someone repeatedly doing a bad thing the reason they're doing it is because they want to do it and there are isn't sufficient push-back or consequences for doing it. Until a country that is defended by nuclear weapons like France decides to send a few jet fighters to force the private jet carrying someone like Musk or Zuckerberg to land so that they can be arrested, tried, and convicted and forced to…

The French government already did this to Pavel Durov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_indictment_of_Pavel... , which I'm sure people like Zuckerberg and Musk paid attention to and developed countermeasures for. After the arrest, Telegram started cooperating more with warrants from various countries' national police. Signal has better security and privacy guarantees than Telegram and is probably what ordinary people should be using instead of Telegram.
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