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The moral panic over data centres is foolish

economist.com

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Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#111

Post by thrance »

People despise datacenters for what they represent: a contemptuous capital class who despises humanism, democracy, art and ecology, and is openly working to screw you over and dismantle all that is good in the world. I'm barely exaggerating.

Therefore any argument about them being "not so bad" in the water/noise/energy department is worthless. You can't Spock your way out of it. People feel AI, in its current incarnation (A tool of the oligarchy), only brings negative value to the world. Hence they're opposed to its avatars, like datacenters or the anti-features popping in every app and websites.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#112

Post by goodmythical »

sanbor wrote: post #73
agentultra wrote: post #22

> just about everything in modern life, from streaming Netflix to running a dishwasher, consumes water at levels that can be portrayed as wasteful by hair-shirt environmentalists. Ad-hominems in an Economist article. This reads more like an opinion piece than reporting. There are plenty of documented problems with water usage of data centres. Some can use it efficiently but it costs more to do so and many (most?) do…

Using a dishwasher can be up to 5x more water-efficient than hand washing. Hand washing one load of dishes can use 20 gallons of water, whereas water- and energy-efficient dishwashers may use as little as four gallons.[1] [1]: https://www.kitchenaid.com/pinch-of-help/major-appliances/di...

Can is doing an awful lot of heaving lifting there.

Given that my sink cannot contain 20 gallons of water and that I do not even fill my sink full to do my dishes by hand, I cannot possibly be using 20 gallons of water to do my dishes when I do my dishes by hand.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#113

Post by SamBam »

hbn wrote: post #59
SamBam wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the data center itself, many people in the US are against what the data center is bringing: more AI. Most regular people have not been sold on the idea that more AI will be good for them or their families or communities personally. Instead all they hear is AI taking away jobs, and AI preventing high schoolers and college kids from learning how to read a book and write an essay. Most people think a world with…

I don't understand why it's being fought by left-leaning, many self-proclaimed communists that have been fighting for a world where we just hang out and make shitty art all day. Isn't AI the only way we get to that? Who is gonna do actual important work otherwise?

Because (a) that vision of utopia is not party of any "self-proclaimed communist" philosophy that I've ever heard of, and (b) no one believes that's what's going to happen.

Instead the evidence of our own eyes tells us that AI seems to be worsening the K-shaped economy: a handful of Elon Musks will become trillionaires, a slightly larger number of engineers will become billionaires, and the rest of us will have fewer jobs and fewer prospects of upward mobility in a world where AI can do most entry-level work.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#114

Post by polotics »

sanbor wrote: post #73
agentultra wrote: post #22

> just about everything in modern life, from streaming Netflix to running a dishwasher, consumes water at levels that can be portrayed as wasteful by hair-shirt environmentalists. Ad-hominems in an Economist article. This reads more like an opinion piece than reporting. There are plenty of documented problems with water usage of data centres. Some can use it efficiently but it costs more to do so and many (most?) do…

Using a dishwasher can be up to 5x more water-efficient than hand washing. Hand washing one load of dishes can use 20 gallons of water, whereas water- and energy-efficient dishwashers may use as little as four gallons.[1] [1]: https://www.kitchenaid.com/pinch-of-help/major-appliances/di...

it really depends how you do it, I don't think one serious non biased study has ever been done. probably an ultrasound bath is the most energy and water-efficient method

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#115

Post by blooalien »

jedberg wrote: post #75
shadedtriangle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep trying to educate them how? By your own admission data centers: * use a lot of water to build one * the power is a problem * the noise is an issue * the power is coming from non-green sources * the government could “easily” fix all this with regulations

Trying to educate them that water and power usage are the less problematic parts and not as bad as everyone thinks. It's the noise and lack of green power that are the problems.

> water ... usage are the less problematic parts

Except when some rich clown from another country comes into a drought-stressed desert area where residents have already been under increasingly draconic water usage restrictions for goin' on a decade now, wantin' to build a datacenter right on a lake that's already under severe stress with record low water levels, tellin' everyone it won't have any effect on anything and it's all just rainbows and sunshine and nothin' but benefits for everyone all around (lies). But yeah, no worries. We can surely trust the billionaire wouldn't lie to us to enrich himself at our expense.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#116

Post by sajithdilshan »

milkshakes wrote: post #100
sajithdilshan wrote: post #78

I think the hatred towards the data centers stems from the anger and frustration that has been caused by the white collar job replacement done by AI. We have an entire generation of young people that went to college and got a degree hoping that they would be able to get a good job and live a comfortable life. However, that's not the case anymore and the fact that almost all entry level jobs are replaced by AI has cre…

> The problem is not that AI is evil, but most of the people would have to learn new skills and adapt because the profession or job they trained at college doesn't exists anymore. isn't the problem then capitalism? the promise of AI is to deliver efficiencies, leverage, and consequent surplus. AI does not itself allocate the surplus.

> isn't the problem then capitalism?

Nope, capitalism is not perfect, but it has lifted billions of people out of poverty and elevated their living standards. The hatred towards capitalism is as irrational as the hatred towards data centers. If you really want to find something to hate and blame all your problems, then blame it on corruption and incompetent politicians.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#117

Post by jjj123 »

hbn wrote: post #59
SamBam wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the data center itself, many people in the US are against what the data center is bringing: more AI. Most regular people have not been sold on the idea that more AI will be good for them or their families or communities personally. Instead all they hear is AI taking away jobs, and AI preventing high schoolers and college kids from learning how to read a book and write an essay. Most people think a world with…

I don't understand why it's being fought by left-leaning, many self-proclaimed communists that have been fighting for a world where we just hang out and make shitty art all day. Isn't AI the only way we get to that? Who is gonna do actual important work otherwise?

The productivity gains would need to be shared by all to get that world, not owned by a couple for-profit entities.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#118

Post by CamperBob2 »

bayindirh wrote: post #98
jedberg wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to educate them that water and power usage are the less problematic parts and not as bad as everyone thinks. It's the noise and lack of green power that are the problems.

Can you please provide us the details how much water an open-air, evaporative cooling system loses due to evaporation and other system-wide losses? Also can you tell us which chemicals need to be added to the outer and inner loops of the systems, and do the inner loop has the same losses or it is different. If there's water loss into the ground, and if the water is treated with chemicals, is it required or is it in f…

Imagine taking half the cars off the road because they no longer need to be there, and then re-run your ecological calculations.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#119

Post by lostmsu »

goodmythical wrote: post #112
sanbor wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a dishwasher can be up to 5x more water-efficient than hand washing. Hand washing one load of dishes can use 20 gallons of water, whereas water- and energy-efficient dishwashers may use as little as four gallons.[1] [1]: https://www.kitchenaid.com/pinch-of-help/major-appliances/di...

Can is doing an awful lot of heaving lifting there. Given that my sink cannot contain 20 gallons of water and that I do not even fill my sink full to do my dishes by hand, I cannot possibly be using 20 gallons of water to do my dishes when I do my dishes by hand.

You don't rinse them after washing?

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#120

Post by bethekidyouwant »

goldenarm wrote: post #65

The article dismisses everything without sourcing anything. US electricity is 40% more expensive since 2022 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610 Some AI datacenters can indeed be heard a mile away https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/28/datacenters-... Amazon's new Texas AI data center could become the biggest CO2 polluter in the US https://www.techradar.com/pro/amazons-new-texas-ai-data-cent...

The gas generators can be heard a mile away… protest gas generators?
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