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A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

nytimes.com

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Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#201

Post by munksbeer »

Gud wrote: post #172
heaney-555 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a lot of other better uses for their labor Who on Earth are you to decide what is the "better" use for labor? And do you scrutinize every construction project or only AI? Is it a waste when contractors build a temporary set for a trashy reality TV show? A factory that makes cosmetics for dogs? Having someone the arbiter of what is the "right" use of labor is communism. In capitalism, people get to decide for themsel…

Uhm, aren't we all allowed to have an opinion on what's best for mankind? FWIW I am a high voltage test engineer. I used to be an electrician. I would prefer to build the substations that power machines for the benefit of all mankind, rather than data centers that feed the already wealthy. For example, keep the lights on for schools. You have a warped view of the world if you believe anything should be allowed to be…

These sort of moral grandstanding arguments are annoying.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#202

Post by bluGill »

saturn8601 wrote: post #99
goatlover wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt we'll see electricians, plumbers or carpenters being replaced anytime soon.

Factory workers maybe but all processes have to be redesigned with design for robotic automation in mind. That will displace a lot of people and they will naturally go into the trades since the skills translate more easily so while I agree they wont be replaced there may be downward pricing pressure. I hear China is doing a lot of this already to stave off their upcoming demographic collapse. I haven't seen raw detai…

“Every time you ask for another dollar in wages, a thousand more robots start looking more practical.” -Roger B. Smith (GM CEO in the 1980s).

Factories have been automating for decades. Last factory tour I took they said in 1950 this plant had over 2000 employees working, now (2019) about 200. Then he pointed to the laser cutter which alone replaced 150 workers with just 2. This factory is not considered very automated by modern standards either.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#203

Post by Teever »

heaney-555 wrote: post #113
willis936 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's good. It also prices out a lot of other better uses for their labor. Projects I work on have seen prices soar. I don't consider building the things everyone hates because they promise concentration of wealth and an attack on labor at the expense of building literally anything else to be somehow a big W for labor because a few people get a slightly higher temporary paycheck. Ask the Wagyu cows how they fee…

>a lot of other better uses for their labor Who on Earth are you to decide what is the "better" use for labor? And do you scrutinize every construction project or only AI? Is it a waste when contractors build a temporary set for a trashy reality TV show? A factory that makes cosmetics for dogs? Having someone the arbiter of what is the "right" use of labor is communism. In capitalism, people get to decide for themsel…

If Meta decided to pivot to a brothel and meth lab building spree would you consider that to be a worse, equal, or better use of their capital and the labour in the regions where they are building out this infrastructure? Why?

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#204

Post by lelanthran »

Animats wrote: post #157

Next, plumbers. The future of data centers seems to be more liquid cooling and less ductwork. Take a look at this new 1 megawatt server rack.[1] It has more pipes than cables. All that coolant flow and all that electrical power in a crowded space is scary. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ssp1t-g_wM

> All that coolant flow and all that electrical power in a crowded space is scary.

Maybe it's a non-conductive oil? I recall seeing someone who overclocked their PC (circa 2005) to 5GHz, and ran the motherboard completely submerged in an oil bath.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#205

Post by [deleted] »

newtonianrules wrote: post #155
boelboel wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine those 300K years they're not just working 40 hours a week, more like 70+ hours. Add higher taxes on those years and it becomes less attractive.

Oooof. I pity the poor fool who has to pay taxes on their 300k annual salary.

[deleted]

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#206

Post by bluGill »

jerlam wrote: post #42
ragebol wrote: post #16

I would have thought this would be about electricians and carpenters with camera's on their heads to train AI. Apparently not yet. Imagine robots (humanoids or something more specialized) building datacenters...

I would think that data centers would be using as much prefab / modular construction as possible and on-site work would be as limited as possible. Those prefab factories may not exist though, and companies want to build out now before the market is mature, instead of a long-term play.

They likely are. However you still need someone to connect the wires to each prefab section.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#207

Post by bluGill »

Danox wrote: post #144
bpodgursky wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Dakota's unemployment rate is 2.3%

Other than farming, what is there to do in North Dakota or South Dakota? Most of the people who live there if they want to do anything else they have to go someplace else. Most of those data centers built in relatively remote areas. will have just a few people working at that data center. It’s not going to bring lasting prosperity to that midsize or small town.

There are a lot of little towns that have a small factory making some weird widget that you don't think about but society would fall about without it.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#208

Post by estearum »

phil21 wrote: post #178
estearum wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting fucktons of energy infrastructure in the middle of nowhere for a gigantic room to employ like 100 people is not really the positive-externality dream of previous infrastructure booms

Why is it in the middle of nowhere? Ignoring that's somewhat the exception, not the rule. It just might have to do with where electrical grid interconnect happens to currently be with spare capacity. These corridors also happen to be where it's going to be easiest to put up even more long distance high voltage transmission. Datacenter siting has went from "where the fiber lines run" to "where we can get power" rather…

You're using a lot of words to describe the same dynamic that I just described.

Yes, they want to put these things near existing power infrastructure (ie cities), but per NIMBYs they cannot. To the extent they can use existing power infrastructure, they are using existing power infrastructure and then only adding what they need. In lieu of a significant bust, this is far more likely to be a negative externality than a positive one.

Of course people realize this, so they do not want to build data centers nearby, ergo data centers are increasingly likely to be sited "in bumfuck nowhere," even up to and including literal outerspace.

Here, the positive externalities are basically zilch regardless of bust or not.

I get the 30,000 foot view that you are describing, but I am saying specifically in this scenario, for this infrastructure, in the specific existing political/economic/land use context we are talking about, I don't see the argument.

Past infrastructure booms have built infrastructure in and around cities. You have just described why that is increasingly not the case, and even if it were the case, it's only a positive externality if there's a giant bust, which feeds back into people wanting to keep these things away from cities!

Please identify a few of the specific infrastructure booms that you think are analogous.

Dams: nope.

Telecom: nope.

Broadband: nope.

Electrification: nope.

Fiber: nope.

None of these look like "build infrastructure in middle of nowhere where if the project succeeds, it consumes everything it created, and if it fails, there's nothing very useful for others to consume that infrastructure in those locations."

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#209

Post by bluGill »

gib444 wrote: post #46
Aurornis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before you decide to change jobs Trades work is hard. Traveling to a far away job site every day and doing physical labor in a building that isn’t heated or cooled yet is the complete opposite of our comfortable office or remote tech jobs. If you’re dreaming about escaping meetings and annoying coworkers, imagine if most of the people you work around aren’t your coworkers at all. They’re other trades people from ot…

> Trades work is hard And lots of tradespeople do very well. Many of the bigger houses round here have work vans in the drives. Many of them are landlords too with significant assets. My street is slowly filling up with rentals, mostly by landlord tradespeople. I was just chatting to a retired one yesterday at the station and he said he was going to have an extremely good retirement until he got divorced and she took…

My company still has somebody working for them who is in his 80s. When he retires his ex gets half is pension - but he isn't retired....

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#210

Post by bespokedevelopr »

tedmiston wrote: post #187
bespokedevelopr wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I applied for an apprenticeship several years ago when I was testing the waters to rotate out of tech after covid. Tested into the highest percentile, had previous high voltage experience with OEMs, a mech eng degree, still ended up like 200 people deep in the queue. That was the end of that interest. You basically have to be friends or family with someone to get into IBEW.

this is a bizarre timeline of reality where an ME degree gets you waitlisted for an electrician apprenticeship

In the end I'm happy it turned out the way it did. I've had some great experiences since and stayed in tech. Plus that freed up a slot for one of the many early 20s kids that were trying to get in.
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