This is a non-story; for those who haven’t read them, prospectuses include every potential risk under the sun. There will be risks that never make the news alongside the exciting backlash.
“Everyone hates us and the very fundamentals of what we are promising, will fight to prevent us establishing infrastructure, may pass laws to limit our activities in their states, and will extend that hatred to our major investors, potentially materially damaging their businesses” is not a common thing in an IPO prospectus, I imagine, for quite obvious reasons. But that is the gist of the situation is it not? If it’s…
Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say
81–90 of 90 posts
Re: Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read that comment as well at the time and was taken aback. After such a lengthy discussion where Jasmine went and talked to the people doing the disagreeing over multiple weeks and reported her findings, Rachel replies that no, this is wrong, her presumably pre-existing belief is correct, and she cites nothing at all in support of this. Due respect seemed lacking despite claims to the contrary. Likewise, I am taken…
I feel like we read two different articles. Both Nate and Jasmine think the outlook for AI looks grim. They both think that the locals are right to protest, they think that the concern about AI and its environmental impact is real, they both think that AI is politically toxic and SV is out of touch. Meanwhile, your comment downplays all of the legitimate concerns that Jasmine discusses and worse, even invents concern…
Huh? How about CMD+F on the comment I replied to? My comment was intended to argue against that, not to summarize a source. I cited the interview towards A.) blue collar workers are getting a good deal B.) localities are getting a lot of tax revenue in return C.) people don't oppose data centers out of fear for their jobs D.) people are primarily upset over secrecy caused by NDAs E.) those NDAs also prevent governments from fighting misinfo.
Separately, I argued that the electricity price, water, and noise issues are not actual problems. I didn't intend to imply that the interview proved that, and, in fairness to you, I could have made that more clear.
Per your objection to C. above, poor phrasing on my part. I meant "not top-of-mind".
>they had real concerns like grid strain, gas generation[...], ugly facilities, temporary jobs, subsidies, secrecy, and an unequal distribution of the benefits.
I didn't say these things were false. I mentioned pollution and subsidies as real, and I highlighted secrecy as the primary issue. Otherwise, I was responding to the parent's claims. My point was never that every complaint one could make about data centers is unfounded; it was that the complaints I was replying to were (except for job loss, which I do believe is a legitimate concern, but which I don't think many agree with me about).
>I find it strange that you're putting more stock in a substack journalist from the Bay area who went to Wisconsin to figure out why people are doing something, than the people who live there and are doing that thing.
??? How is it wrong to trust a person who interviewed people about what those people believe over someone who does not even claim to be involved? How about, instead of a substack, she provide any reason at all we should take her word over someone who talked to people who live there? As far as I can tell, you give the commenter as much credibility as the journalist because she agrees with you and lets you say "bingo". You can find my epistemics as strange as you like, they sure beat that.
Re: Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well there is a story, and the story is we are going to have an Anthropic IPO? Believe it when I see it...
We've known Anthropic has filed for an IPO since early June.
I reckon they'll chicken out, though.
Re: Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Everyone hates us and the very fundamentals of what we are promising, will fight to prevent us establishing infrastructure, may pass laws to limit our activities in their states, and will extend that hatred to our major investors, potentially materially damaging their businesses” is not a common thing in an IPO prospectus, I imagine, for quite obvious reasons. But that is the gist of the situation is it not? If it’s…
"Everyone hates us but they can't have enough of us. Our revenue can't stop rising" Anthropic's credit line is now $10B - [0], and the IPO is expected to beat or match SpaceX - [1] [0] https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/anthropic-p... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-20/anthropic...
Anthropic is far from profitable so using Claude makes them lose money. There's a fictional scenario where they make this money back with a huge profit but it's getting very hard to believe this gonna happen.
Re: Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because oil, cigs, and beer don't create the existential threat to the human race that Anthropic is trying to claim it creates. Yes, it is software , something more powerful and thus potentially more harmful than any of the above physical products.
I don't buy the "existential threat" argument for a second. Nuclear weapons are an existential threat. AI is not. If AI can control nuclear weapons, then maybe. I don't believe any nuclear power has added an AI interface to their nuclear controls. Until that time, it's general purpose software and is mostly useful and mostly benign. That's my take.
Sure. Now pair it with corporations that fully control over government institutions.
Re: Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say
#86The risk is that we rise up and violently lynch the elites when they try to implement autonomous AI mass surveillance backed by an army of robots to quell the growing unrest of unemployed "useless eaters". It's a big risk and the only ways to mitigate it are either: a) build the dystopian system quickly and violently killing all dissenters on sight b) build a utopian system where robots build our houses, grow our foo…
How about scenario c) Mass surveillance is used to reduce crime in high crime areas usually ignored by police, and public safety is provided to all citizens, even the poor and working class? How about the army of robots helps to clean the streets, provide services to the poor and working classes, and provide high quality low cost housing, clean water, and livable cities?
We live in a world of greed and corruption, but magically the powers that be truly find Jesus in their hearts and donate all their money to 'clean the streets, provide services to the poor and working classes, and provide high quality low cost housing, clean water, and livable cities'?
Re: Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its not just pervasiveness, but how it's characterized. "AI data centers are raising electricity rates." or "AI pivot is the reason for 10% layoffs". It's rare that you read "AI cures cancer" or "AI reducing inflation" or "AI raising standard of living for blue collar workers". The relentless drum beat on AI news is negative even when there is zero - literally zero - evidence around the speculation. To wit: AI will d…
> To wit: AI will destroy all of humanity, or the related "AI will become sentient and lead to threat to human civ" etc. This is pure negative science fiction All of this is true, but it is the two main AI companies themselves who created and marketed this narrative. It's their negative science fiction. It is part of the marketing campaign they are running that is the foundation of arguments that the government shoul…
I agree its a marketing campaign or, I suspect, a legislative campaign to generate federal (and importantly NOT state level) favorable legislation giving them broad immunity, tax exempt status, trade barriers or whatever else they want. So yes "self serving".
I still say its false and worth refuting even if they promote it. Maybe especially since they promote it: you amplify their agenda by repeating their PR.
Re: Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
The electricity usage is off the charts. Every place that gets a data center has their electricity prices go up. Consumers are now fighting to stop data centers from coming into their hometowns. It's not like Data centers have lots of jobs that benefit a community anyway. It's basically a building that eats a local city's resources and gives barely anything back in return. At best, an AI data center is a year job for…
The electrical price argument I find unconvincing. If this is a shortage of electrical capacity the data center didn't arrange that. I'm pretty sure they want plentiful cheap electricity. And the data center doesn't set the price: that's the utility and regulators. Yet the consumer is blamed for poor regulation and low supply?
The Hyperion Datacenter alone is estimated to eat 5GW of power from the grid.
In contrast, all of Texas just reached a peak of 91GW a few weeks ago.
A singular datacenter uses electricity that's comparable to small states, and is a non-negligable portion of electricity usage of larger states like Texas.
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What do you think happens when a rich datacenter comes in bidding whatever price for electricity? Spoiler alert, we live in a free market. The price auctions of electricity skyrockets, just like what's going on in the PJM interconnect.
Re: Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about scenario c) Mass surveillance is used to reduce crime in high crime areas usually ignored by police, and public safety is provided to all citizens, even the poor and working class? How about the army of robots helps to clean the streets, provide services to the poor and working classes, and provide high quality low cost housing, clean water, and livable cities?
I hope this is Larry Ellison's account otherwise the naivety on display in your comment is what I would expect from a preteen that hasn't ever watched the news. We live in a world of greed and corruption, but magically the powers that be truly find Jesus in their hearts and donate all their money to 'clean the streets, provide services to the poor and working classes, and provide high quality low cost housing, clean…
Of course that's just an impression but my point is that your dystopian view is a morality tale with bad villains and some implied good guys.
Life is not a comic book, there are good versions of the future, all government isn't evil, and sometimes things improve for everyone.
Re: Anthropic IPO filing will show AI backlash as a risk factor, sources say
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The electrical price argument I find unconvincing. If this is a shortage of electrical capacity the data center didn't arrange that. I'm pretty sure they want plentiful cheap electricity. And the data center doesn't set the price: that's the utility and regulators. Yet the consumer is blamed for poor regulation and low supply?
Supply and demand. The Hyperion Datacenter alone is estimated to eat 5GW of power from the grid. In contrast, all of Texas just reached a peak of 91GW a few weeks ago. A singular datacenter uses electricity that's comparable to small states, and is a non-negligable portion of electricity usage of larger states like Texas. -------- What do you think happens when a rich datacenter comes in bidding whatever price for el…
They are deliberately reducing supply to keep themselves at maximum profitability.
But hey - someone invents popular electric cars, and everyone wants to use AI for their homework. These things need electrical capacity. A lot more.
As I've said elsewhere: data centers don't set electrical prices (utilities do, sometimes under regulators); data centers don't determine capacity - utilities do.
Data Centers want cheap electricity and abundant capacity like we all do. Maybe more so.
If a local restaurant makes hamburgers, and decides to restrict the number of hamburgers they can make to keep profit margins up, and then someone comes into town with a circus that wants to eat and the restaurant decides to triple their prices to gouge the circus and sells all the hamburgers to them, is that the fault of the circus? The circus didn't want to restrict the restaurant capacity, nor did they set the price of the burger. They want many and cheap burgers like everyone else - they're a customer just like us.
This is clearly an institutional problem: greedy inefficient utilities, and let's call them "oddly cooperative" political players (I'm not gonna say corrupt without any evidence, but whose interests are they serving?).