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U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

tomshardware.com

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Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#21

Post by plasticchris »

oefrha wrote: post #11

What I don’t understand is that the vast majority of LLM workloads are pretty damn latency-insensitive. Why can’t they build these data centers where there’s little to no opposition? Sure someone will need to maintain the data centers, but with trillions in investment lined up, surely they can just pay people enough so they’re okay with living in the middle of nowhere. Edit: When I say the middle of nowhere I mean sa…

Because they need the local infrastructure to support them, which would be difficult and expensive to reproduce out in the middle of nowhere.

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#22

Post by detourdog »

cmiles8 wrote: post #7

There isn’t much the federal government can do here. Planning permission is very local in the US. If local officials don’t want a data center it isn’t happening. In most communities these days you’d have better luck proposing to build a toxic waste processing facility than a data center.

FERC is some sort of law that takes control of local ordnances to force local municipalities to accept energy infrastructure.

https://ferc.gov/

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#23

Post by vrganj »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #4

This degrowth anti-technology mindset just does not make sense to me, and I think it's mostly astroturfed from TikTok.

Why would people possibly not want something that uses up water in times of constant draught, uses up energy in an energy crisis and pollutes the air and contributes to climate change in times of climate catastrophe, all so a few already way-too-rich dudes can become even richer?

It just doesn't make sense! Surely they were manipulated to hate progress!

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#24

Post by Zambyte »

It seems like there will be a collapse in building data centers, to the point that a large amount of the newly built ones will be reclaimed for other things. There is a very large group of people who are against building new data centers because they hate AI (and any pollution related arguments these people make are in support of their primary concern, being AI). But on the flip side of that, even people that I know that go out of their way to use AI, mostly seem interested in building their own AI rigs and running everything locally. I know that's what I do; I almost never use any hosted AI services these days, but I'm using more tokens than ever. The demand for data centers from people who actually like AI even seems to be plummeting.

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#25

Post by cmiles8 »

detourdog wrote: post #22
cmiles8 wrote: post #7

There isn’t much the federal government can do here. Planning permission is very local in the US. If local officials don’t want a data center it isn’t happening. In most communities these days you’d have better luck proposing to build a toxic waste processing facility than a data center.

FERC is some sort of law that takes control of local ordnances to force local municipalities to accept energy infrastructure. https://ferc.gov/

In theory yes. In practice if the local congressman wants to keep their job they’ll block it at any cost if there’s local opposition.

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#26

Post by chasd00 »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #4

This degrowth anti-technology mindset just does not make sense to me, and I think it's mostly astroturfed from TikTok.

You’re going to get modded down but you’re right. Go look at these sites in Google Maps compared to datacenter sites that already exist and have existed for a decade.

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#27

Post by XorNot »

Zambyte wrote: post #24

It seems like there will be a collapse in building data centers, to the point that a large amount of the newly built ones will be reclaimed for other things. There is a very large group of people who are against building new data centers because they hate AI (and any pollution related arguments these people make are in support of their primary concern, being AI). But on the flip side of that, even people that I know…

What are you running at home, out of interest?

While I cautiously circle the AI programming concept, one thing close to my mind has definitely been whether the ultimately cloud-tied nature of it is what makes me much more stand offish to it.

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#28

Post by meltyness »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #4

This degrowth anti-technology mindset just does not make sense to me, and I think it's mostly astroturfed from TikTok.

are you confident the demand for massive ai datacenters peppered everywhere isn't just some financial gambit? wouldn't you ask for consequences and side-effects that are socially desirable, even if the facility brings no wealth to the immediate area (either as a consequence of being owned by a remote corp, or by the investment failing completely).

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#29

Post by flanked-evergl »

goda90 wrote: post #9
flanked-evergl wrote: post #4

This degrowth anti-technology mindset just does not make sense to me, and I think it's mostly astroturfed from TikTok.

What part confuses you? The threat to stable and affordable electricity and water supply? The water, light and noise pollution? The threat to jobs? The threat to truth and transparency? The threat to privacy?

> The threat to stable and affordable electricity and water supply

The only threat to stable and affordable electricity supply is government regulations. The idea that we will from here on just have degrown and decline is insane. I'm not up for that. Which means we will always need more electricity, so time to get building more power plants. There is no bounds to how much electricity humans need, and the more we have the more prosperity we will have

As for water supply. Data centers barely make a blip on the water usage.

> The water, light and noise pollution?

The only one of these which actually has any validity is noise pollution, and the US has one of the lowest population densities of any country in the world, and data centres don't need to be close to population centres.

> The threat to jobs?

CEOs saying they are laying people off because of AI is not the same as anyone losing their job because of AI, but even if that was the case, it's about as smart as not using an electric drill to save jobs.

> The threat to truth and transparency?

AI does not only not threaten truth and transparency, it makes it easier to find the truth and to circumvent transperency restrictions.

> The threat to privacy?

It's not.

Re: U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

#30

Post by cmiles8 »

roosterIllusi0n wrote: post #13
cmiles8 wrote: post #7

There isn’t much the federal government can do here. Planning permission is very local in the US. If local officials don’t want a data center it isn’t happening. In most communities these days you’d have better luck proposing to build a toxic waste processing facility than a data center.

They can certainly look the other way when these small town boards get paid off to allow the datacenter.

Well the reason data center stuff is news is that local boards are resisting all the usual efforts. It’s been quite extraordinary, but town after town is sending the data center folks packing.
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