Data centers trigger voter backlash

https://www.newsweek.com/cost-me-the-election-data-centers-trigger-voter-backlash-12118327

202 299 26 days ago

In Utah on Wednesday, State Senate President J. Stuart Adams—one of the most powerful Republicans in the state—lost his primary election after supporting a major data center development near the Great Salt Lake, in one of the clearest signs yet of the growing political risks tied to the industry.
At the local level, the fallout was just as direct. “Do I think that the data center vote cost me the election? Yes I do,” former Box Elder County Commissioner Lee Perry said after conceding his primary race, after voting to advance the same project.

downrightmike4• 26 days ago

The Great Salt Lake is already disappearing and likely to create massive toxic winds because of all the toxic waste dumped into it. Using up that water faster is not a good thing.

luxuryballs3• 26 days ago

When I look at the total number of acres in a state and the number that may get taken up by a data center… not that we should even have to look at this spec but still not sure why people are so focused on data center construction as an issue unless it’s literally going to be next to your house, is there anything more than FUD going on here? And perhaps people taking advantage of it specifically as a talking point given election season.

Rapzid• 26 days ago

Misdirected outrage. DCs are an easy outlet for people's AI frustration.

idiotsecant• 26 days ago

When people hear datacenter they think ai-almost universally subsidies by the many for the few. They drive up electrical costs, increase carbon emissions, and are designed to make money by stealing and repackaging the fruit of human labor and thought, with the goal of ultimately replacing it not for the benefit of all, but for the benefit of the owners of that datacenter.

What's not to like?

DeRock• 26 days ago

the Stratos development would have spanned tens of thousands of acres in Box Elder County’s Hansel Valley. The project would ultimately require up to 9 gigawatts of power—more electricity than the entire state of Utah currently uses

Did you even read the article? This is proposed to be larger than Manhattan. The amount of power will almost certainly burden Utahs grid in ways that locals will be on the hook for. So much of this build out will be the typical "privatize gains, socialize losses" playbook that yes it is an important political issue, and yes you have to "look at this spec" to understand just how insane some of these project proposals are.

vablings• 26 days ago

"Privatize gains, socialize losses"

This pretty much spells out exactly my big problem with datacenters. I don't care if you build a huge datacenter several miles away from my home. What I do care about is utilities cranking up the price 3x because of "capacity issues" afterwards because said datacenter now uses more power than the entire district I live in

luxuryballs3• 22 days ago

Manhattan is roughly 0.00077% of U.S. land area.

Diogenesian• 26 days ago

I think part of it is the perception that real environmental and public health damage is being done for totally trivial and indefensible causes. A data center is not like an airplane parts manufacturer, which has lots of ugly pollution but provides a necessary national service. Most people use generative AI recreationally, and the productivity gains among white-collar workers are awfully ephemeral. And if you're less pessimistic about the economics of generative AI... that makes it worse!

"We get a ton of money, you get increased natural gas emissions, increased unemployment, your electric bill is going up... oh and guess who's bailing us out when the bubble bursts?" Pretty rotten deal!

luxuryballs3• 22 days ago

casual/recreational AI use is only a subset of computing, data centers are a hardware problem, I say that tongue-in-cheek but literally it’s true, data centers and computing have always been growing in demand and distribution/regional needs regardless of the software and it will continue to evolve, making it an AI issue seems like an opportunistic way of injecting sentiment about AI for the purpose of discussing cultural opinions about AI, these vibes will transcend time and space regardless of the need for physical server space

LorenPechtel• 26 days ago

The problem is not the center per se. The problem is the power. And, all too often they make up for the lack of utility capacity by putting in their own noisy generators.

GarnetFloride• 26 days ago

You can't look at the total acreage of the state as a metric when 64.4% of the state is owned by the federal government.

The proposed site is twice the size of Manhattan, NY and sized for 9GW of energy which is more than the entire state uses yearly. We literally do not have the water to support a data center that huge.

They just enacted a fireworks ban because the weather people just had to create a whole new category for how dry and dangerous it is. Air quality is a constant problem because all the pollution from regions West of Utah collect right against the mountains. A few years ago we woke up to what looked like heavy fog, but it was smoke --from Siberia.

apothegm• 26 days ago

Water usage concerns in a desert, perhaps?

yardie• 26 days ago

A few months ago the founders of the top AI companies walked into Capitol Hill. Tried to explain to a room full of elected representatives exactly how their technology was going to put almost half the working population into under/unemployment and they should consider UBI [0]. Then they went back to the airport, got on their corporate jets, and went home secure in the knowledge that they really showed them. That they were the smartest people in the room.

BTW, no one I know gives a shit about the energy consumption or water usage. They absolutely want to know if these datacenters will bring jobs to their area. So far Altman, Ellison, O'Leary, Amodei, Pichai, and Zuckerberg have refused to answer that question.

[0] All except Jensen who has been really trying to explain the benefits of AI and has said these massive layoffs are a huge mistake.

dreamcompiler• 26 days ago

Out here in the US southwest, we absolutely do care about water usage as well as the potential for higher electricity prices. We also care about jobs, which in the case of data centers are only going to be boosted temporarily until construction is finished.

user3939382• 26 days ago

Plenty of people care about their power bill. Water in some regions is a hot political issue. Data centers don’t create jobs of course, we don’t need anyone to answer that.

Jtsummers• 26 days ago

"Some regions" being a a bit of an understatement, the US west and southwest are experiencing (or about to experience) severe water shortages and disruption due to the current water shortages.

hunter-gatherer2• 26 days ago

I'm local-ish to Box Elder county in Utah, here people absolutely give a shit about the environmental burden to the region. It isn't just about water consumption, but other things. I think the "We need to win China is AI" narrative is (appropriately???) falling of deaf ears. Obviously I don't have the numbers, but even lay-people in my circles have asked how these alleged AI_driven benefits (fighting cancer, stopping climate change, and whatever) are really going to come to fruition, when what they really observe in their backyards are data centers being generated so we can fill our lives with AI slop.

jboggan• 26 days ago

(I'm also in Utah)

I'll second this observation, as well as add that apart from AI slop most people around here associate the data center push with the sudden proliferation of Flock cameras at every major intersection and along every highway. Provo defeated a major data center project that was going into an empty industrial park, arguably the kind of place that would fit that sort of development. The actual cost-benefit calculation for most people is heavily weighted towards the negative and this should not continue to surprise people. The perceived downside with no upside is just going to get worse if the government gatekeeps the most useful models.

cogman103• 26 days ago

Box elder is particularly egregious. 9GW of new natural gas burning power concentrated in 1 location in a state that already suffers from poor air quality.

missingcolours• 26 days ago

The people doing the voting are mostly talking about how much water datacenters supposedly use.

acdha3• 26 days ago

More electricity than water around here—rates going up gets everyone’s attention—but there’s nothing supposedly about the water use: data centers don’t consume the water permanently but they still put stress on systems which weren’t designed for the extra volume, pushing requests for expensive expansion projects, and there can be other problems: a colleague mentioned his family back home recently learned that the extra water circulation was spreading a groundwater pollution plume substantially faster, affecting well water users in the area. Since these things tend not to contribute many jobs, there isn’t much to balance out the bad news for communities.

cogman103• 26 days ago

no one I know gives a shit about the energy consumption or water usage.

They do when the knowledge of the resource consumption is paired with "Which will directly lead to your electric/gas bill going up."

People are also paying attention to the fact that the politicians aren't paying attention to the people. Nobody is even trying to sell the benefits of a datacenter in people's backyard. Instead, politicians are bending over backwards to eliminate any possible benefit by giving these datacenters permanent tax breaks.

When you have politicians clearly bought by businessmen who don't care about the communities that elected them. It's a bit of a no brainer that they'd be voted out.

ToucanLoucan• 26 days ago

I think it's less about what data centers are and more about what they represent.

* The lack of care of governments of the people's will: they're opposed nearly everywhere but city governments get them done anyway, oftentimes while ignoring more important local problems

* The intrusion of the wealthy/big tech into people's lives. Large tech companies tend to be like insurance companies: they just appear out of the ether of daily life, and make your life worse.

* The ongoing selling out of America to the wealthy: the rich can do, buy, or build whatever they want. Regular people have to just deal with it.

I'm just saying a lot of these I expect we're going to start seeing more direct opposition to from local activists. And a lot of these areas have high rates of gun ownership.

cjfd• 26 days ago

You can talk about UBI if you want to appear nice but people on UBI are also rather useless. Of course the real solution to the problem will be the change of carbon based life into silicon based life and the extermination of the former kind of life. Which is not the elected representatives problem if it happens to happen more than 4 years into the future.

mcv2• 26 days ago

You kid, but Bezos said practically the same thing. That human need for water shouldn't hold AI back.

Henchman21• 26 days ago

I agree with your point broadly, even the cynicism, but the following sticks in my craw:

people on UBI are also rather useless

The point of life is not “that you be useful to the wealthy”.

BigTTYGothGF3• 26 days ago

people on UBI are also rather useless

UBI is going to get us a lot more artists of all kinds.

whalesalad2• 26 days ago

no one I know gives a shit about the energy consumption or water usage

the environmental impacts is the only thing people actually care about, you are quite off base here. noise, proximity to housing, water usage, energy prices going up in the area. this is the core issue. not "will ai replace my job"

BigTTYGothGF3• 26 days ago

They absolutely want to know if these datacenters will bring jobs to their area.

The answer to that is so obviously "no" that I wonder how much attention they've been paying.

rzwitserloot• 26 days ago

It's the local v. federal thing. The US has been suffering from this for a while, as has Germany. The EU, too, is suffering from this.

The local politician's thinking is thusly:

- Datacenters are going to happen somewhere. And when this inevitably occurs, jobs everywhere, including here, will disappear. There is nothing I can do about that. It's as baked into my assumptions about the near future, as is the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow.

- If I allow the datacenter to happen here then while the builders are here they might buy some stuff locally for the build, and after they are done, the datacenter will employ literally a handful of people to guard and maintain the place. Not much of a gain, but, hey, the alternative is that I have nothing at all.

In other words, the 'competition' aspect between states / bundeslander / EU countries is causing these entities to race to the bottom together.

The solution is... not to do that. As somebody living in a country that doesn't suffer from this particular malady (The Netherlands, which does have provinces, and provinces work in reverse from states: The only rights they have are ones explicitly allotted to them by the state; The Netherlands is not a 'federation of provinces', whereas the US is a 'federation of states', Germany is a 'federation of bundleslander', and the EU is a federation of countries).

It means a province in The Netherlands cannot just offer a would be major company some ridiculous boon to come settle in their province at the cost of other provinces, because provinces in The Netherlands do not have the right to dictate e.g. tax rates, and even any infra project they would do requires permission (and funds) from the 'federal level' (the country).

It's been going on for ten years and there have been nada, zero, zilch solutions to the problem. Thus my stance remains: You have to put a stop to that. The problem is, of course, this requires an entity that currently has some power (namely: states / bundeslander / EU countries) to voluntarily give up power to the federated entity that sits 'above' them, and it's always difficult to convince an entity with power to voluntarily relinquish it.

Still, that's the job.

thomastjeffery4• 26 days ago

Most people I know (in Utah) are predominantly concerned with the pollution and water use. Water is the most ubiquitous concern across politics in Utah. No matter what political ideology you adhere to, water rights and water conservation are a core topic. If you watch local news for more than an hour or two, you will see propaganda to "slow the flow". One of the most common criticisms of our Governor is that he publicly prays for rain, while using an incredible amount of water on his own alfalfa farms.

The sheer sense of scale on this particular project is mind-boggling.

9 gigawatts of power—more electricity than the entire state of Utah currently uses

In a community where conservation is at the forefront of everyone's minds, planning something that big is like a slap in the face.

criddell3• 26 days ago

Why is water so inexpensive? Shouldn’t the price per gallon increase exponentially? It seems like it shouldn’t be that difficult to come up with curves so that typical households pay very little for water and the big users pay a lot for water.

jagged-chisel• 26 days ago

... refused to answer ...

It's a "no." Why does anyone expect an explicit, vocalized response? It's "no" until they provide proof and guarantees otherwise. You don't need to hear them say "there are no jobs" to act as if (rather, to know) there are no jobs.

e403• 26 days ago

Construction jobs, yes. After that, a skeleton crew and a bunch of people in far off places, possibly outside the country.

esikich10• 26 days ago

So? Since when is there a floor for the number of jobs a business has to create? Suzies Tanning Salon uses a lot of energy but only employs 3 people.

miiiiiike17• 26 days ago

I have zero faith in the current generation of gen AI. I think the claims are overblown and the odds of massive unemployment is near zero.

Even if the AI bubble pops, the world isn’t going to need fewer data centers. I don’t care if a data center developer/speculator loses their shirt. The data center will stand long after they fold and someone will operate it.

Build it here. Create the construction jobs. Collect the property taxes.

Eat while there’s food.

multjoy3• 26 days ago

When the AI bubble pops. It will, and it will be glorious.

verdverm3• 26 days ago

The US needs to build out energy infra like China, already >2x more total generation capacity (~1/3 of world total). Putting data centers aside, if America wants to bring manufacturing back, it will need energy to build things. RE: data centers, we do need to be more mindful of where they go and the resources they consume. We should force them to use water efficient cooling (more expensive for them) and support the buildout of the required energy gen. Utah does not seem an appropriate place for such a large data center.

The question is do we want to be a Petrostate or an Electrostate

https://youtu.be/gLnxzkiB-GI?is=CHj3J-ARp0iBq_NB (Adam Tooze prezi)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...

phlipski• 26 days ago

Most US citizens want to be an electrostate. This current administration wants to go back in time and try to be a petrostate....

verdverm3• 26 days ago

That may not be true for much longer given the (disappointing) trend

2020 - 79 : 20 (renewables : fossil fuel)

2026 - 57 : 42

https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2026/04/03/americans-shi...

cosmic_cheese2• 26 days ago

This is a pretty predictable reaction to the underhanded tactics being used to try to force these projects through either before citizens know they're happening and often, when citizens are aware, against their will.

As a side note, I wish we could muster this kind of vigor for just about any other type of public infrastructure project… nuclear/wind/solar power, fiberoptic internet, public high speed rail, new cities built around human-centric principles… you know, the things that the better part of the population stands to benefit from so at least the initial unrest is somewhat justified.

SpicyLemonZest• 26 days ago

We do muster this kind of vigor. The problem is that coverage decisions shaped by negativity bias ensure you're much more likely to hear about the projects people don't like. Did you hear about the huge New Mexico wind farm, largest in the US to date, that came online two weeks ago?

cosmic_cheese2• 26 days ago

That's true, but I also see a lot of infrastructure projects that get gummed up or even canceled by NIMBYs, industry incumbents, and general obstructionism that would've happened had they been undertaken with the same bull-in-china-shop approach these datacenter projects tend to take.

TheGRS• 26 days ago

You get the same vigor against all of those project all the time. Windmills, solar, nuclear, rail, etc. There's a stronger will to oppose than to build.

cdrnsf• 26 days ago

Nothing this technology offers is, to me, worth the noise pollution or increase in water and electricity rates.

toomuchtodo2• 26 days ago

Not to mention the tax breaks they're given for no material benefit to the community.

Future Illinois data center tax breaks on hold - https://www.illinoistimes.com/news/future-data-center-tax-br... - June 25th, 2026

State Data Center Policy Shifts as Governors Impose New Restrictions - https://www.multistate.us/insider/2026/6/22/state-data-cente... - June 22nd, 2026

Gov. JB Pritzker suspends tax breaks for data centers, urges more discussion - https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/gov-jb-pritzker-to-susp... - June 5th, 2026

Which States Are Banning Data Centers? - https://www.ncsl.org/fiscal/which-states-are-banning-data-ce... - June 2nd, 2026

US tax incentives for data centers by state - https://knowledge.sdialliance.org/8d367baa340046029912b1e04c...

Tax Incentives for Data Centers 50 State Survey - https://hbfiles.blob.core.windows.net/webfiles/TaxIncentives... [pdf]

simianwords9• 26 days ago

Again misleading. they bring back more in tax than the subsidies.

xvedejas3• 26 days ago

In a working economy, an increase in demand for electricity would be met with an increase in investment and capacity, and (at least in the long-term) would benefit all electricity buyers. I'm sure there are market failures going on here in many places but it's not necessarily the case that you and the companies be on opposing sides. There are positive-sum solutions to a lot of these problems, if people are willing to consider them.

amanaplanacanal2• 26 days ago

Don't all states have public utility commissions that regulate electricity provisioning? I don't know if the market has much to do with anything since it's all government regulation.

forlorn_mammoth• 26 days ago

in the long term

being the key phrase. Until we get to that long term, the less price sensitve buyer can buy up all available goods.

for example, all of the gas turbines needed to generate electricity.

so it is impossible to invest in capacity for non-datacenter uses, because the raw ingredients have already been bought up by the data centers.

effectively, at current rate of investment, > 90% of investment into new power generation goes to data centers. That doesn't leave much for any kind of other economic growth, since all of our economic growth depends on electricity.

acdha3• 26 days ago

The problem is that we don’t correctly price pollution: it’d be one thing if this boom meant acres of solar panels and wind turbines getting greenlit but in practice it means keeping some dirty plants online and building out new pollution capacity, sometimes completely illegally like what happened in Memphis.

All of this would go away overnight if we taxed carbon.

Joker_vD• 26 days ago

It's quite amusing how easily people fall into the trap of Malthusianism when talking about water/electricity consumption of certain industries.

doom22• 26 days ago

In a working economy, an increase in demand for electricity would be met with an increase in investment and capacity, and (at least in the long-term) would benefit all electricity buyers.

The same should apply to memory and GPU manufacturers and yet I have seen no commitments from them to increase supply, so the end result is that consumer electronics are becoming ever more expensive compared to even just a year ago. That doesn't feel like a working economy to me.

whalesalad2• 26 days ago

Datacenters are needed regardless of whether or not AI -- "this technology" -- is what will be deployed there.

jesse_dot_id4• 26 days ago

Technology evolves and your opinion will evolve with it.

kibwen• 26 days ago

"The beatings will continue until opinions evolve."

pesus9• 26 days ago

You're right, but that doesn't mean opinions will evolve towards viewing the technology more positively. With AI, it's increasingly the opposite.

bamboozled2• 26 days ago

Think of the corporate profit gains which won't benefit you at all bro. It's all about the value proposition.

adamsb62• 26 days ago

I don’t think you’ve been near a data center if you think noise pollution is a problem.

miiiiiike17• 26 days ago

Data centers do more than AI. And you won’t defeat AI by killing data center proposals. The technology will succeed or fail on its own. We’ll find out in about 5 years.

Remember how “everyone” said all trucks will be self-driving in 10 years… 15 years ago?

There are something like 1200 data center proposals cross the US. How many of those will actually be built? How many are being proposed by speculators with no experience building or operating data centers? I have a feeling the number that will actually be built is significantly less that 1200.

jrm4• 26 days ago

Generally, I'm glad that "the people" appear to be pointed in the IMHO correct direction, even if for imprecise, or maybe even wrong, reasons.

Regardless of what they are used for, we do not need more "data centers." This is true even outside of AI.

Putting so much of us into "the cloud" is generally harmful; encouraging people to learn about, and to do more "computing" at home -- on local machines they, or someone who cares about them, control, is better.

xantronix• 26 days ago

I'm happy to endure HN if it means I get to see hopeful, reasonable observations like yours.

simianwords9• 26 days ago

You think this is reasonable? The person is just trying to conserve their job. It’s an act of self preservation and the opposite of virtue. And it’s not even historically accurate.

munificent• 26 days ago

It's not really about AI, data centers, water consumption, or energy. Those are real issues. But I don't think that's what gets people so riled up.

Imagine if every AI company was a small local business run by middle class folks and there were thousands of these little companies. The total amount of data centers, water, and energy consumption is the same.

I don't think people would be anywhere near as mad then. There are still other societal externalities around AI to get mad about, sure.

But I think one of the biggest drivers of rage around AI is inequality. It's not about what is being consumed to produce AI, it's about the tiny fraction of soulless billionaire elites that benefit from it. It's about a small number of fantastically rich assholes who keep taking more and more and more while there is less and less left for everyone else.

The rage that Luigi Mangione felt is the same rage these voters feel and I believe has the same root cause. That rage won't go away if AI gets more energy efficient or stops using water.

simianwords9• 26 days ago

The rage that Luigi Mangione felt

Luigi is an interesting case because he is not who you think he is. He is definitely not a luddite or populist. I know this because I read a social deep dive on him. His interests, the books he read, the accounts he followed all point to a level of sophistication that indicates he was well above the simplistic "us vs them" Marxist framework.

I also disagree with your overall point here: its not (just) about inequality. AI benefits everyone while also benefitting the billionaires - even disproportionately. What one should definitely acknowledge is that AI is raising the floor and is not _taking_ something from poor people and giving it to the billionaires which is again applying the Marxist framework. What is true is that, even if people are overall benefitting from AI, they are feeling powerless and sense a lack of agency where they see a big societal change happening in front of their eyes and they don't have any say in it. Having no say is kinda the default so you see the backlash from the educated elites who always thought they had a voice - until the AI technology boom came.

pesus9• 26 days ago

AI benefits everyone while also benefitting the billionaires - even disproportionately.

Source?

Also, you seem to be (probably intentionally) mixing up who's an elite and who's not. The people controlling and profiting from AI companies and their ilk are elites. The average person who's livelihood is at risk is not an elite, not matter how much you may try to spin it.

phil21• 25 days ago

It's about both.

My mother is fully aboard the "a datacenter ruins the local town" train. She is looking to sell her small farm and move, but she's literally asking AI if a datacenter is planned in every town she's looking into moving to.

Not "is there a datacenter within 500 feet of the home I'm looking to buy" - but anywhere in the county. She just does not have an inkling of the local impact but hoovers up all the doomerism on the topic.

She also doesn't like them due to "billionaires" but the idea that a datacenter makes the surrounding 10 mile area unlivable is front and center. The irresponsible reporting and social media environment has made her terrified of what amounts to glorified warehouses being located a few miles down the road she otherwise never would have known existed. No amount of showing her what they really are (having worked in datacenters my whole adult life) can change her mind.

arjie2• 26 days ago

Honestly, voter backlash occurs for every reason. Build more homes? Backlash. Build more wind? Backlash. Build more solar? Backlash. Build more geothermal? Backlash. Build more urban subway? Backlash. Build high-speed rail? Backlash. What I can conclude from this is that what is right to do and what voter backlash occurs in is orthogonal. I think it is right that we build all these things and more nuclear power, and more residential super towers, and more datacenters, and the other things for the same reason we climb the mountains, fly the Atlantic, and Rice plays Texas.

amanaplanacanal2• 26 days ago

How does a new datacenter help the voters? All they see is that their electricity prices are going to go up.

anthonypasq9• 26 days ago

why do we give a shit what voters think should happen on someone else's property again?

downrightmike4• 26 days ago

Their taxes and cost of living goes up, oh wait

staticshock• 26 days ago

Agreed. Change makes people uncomfortable. The nature of the change doesn't matter; the transition itself is the root of the discomfort.

When things are stagnant, we gradually optimize our lives towards a low energy state and overfit to our exact circumstances. When a change in circumstances reveals past optimizations to be wasted work, it kick-starts the four stages of grief over the loss of that low energy state.

madrox• 26 days ago

The rhetoric around AI has been insane for years now. AI will kill us all. AI will take all our jobs. SaaS is dead. AI is too dangerous to even release.

It's really no surprise at all voters hate data centers, no matter how useful they think AI might be.

But I don't think the rhetoric will end any time soon. The people saying it seem to really believe it.

thewillowcat2• 26 days ago

I can tell you, based on local examples, that politicians are setting up deals to bring in data centers without trying to build community support first. Not only that, they are often signing NDAs that prohibit them from telling voters what they have agreed to. It's no way to operate in a democracy, and voters are right to be angry.

adamsb62• 26 days ago

I’m a voter who prefers we establish rules that be followed rather than encumber every project with a lengthy community dialogue.

starik36• 26 days ago

That's it right there. Rules, not deals.

thewillowcat2• 26 days ago

These companies aren't coming in, buying property at market rates, and developing it with existing infrastructure under current zoning laws. They usually want tax breaks, major infrastructure changes, and other accommodations and guarantees. It's completely reasonable for people to want a dialog with their representatives before those kinds of arrangements are made with a company on their behalf. And it's entirely reasonable for them to vote out reps that are overly accommodating.

I live in an historic district. I had to attend a public meeting a couple years ago to get approval to change a lamp post. It is perfectly reasonable to ask tech companies to show up and defend massive projects to the public.

sidewndr46• 26 days ago

That'd pretty much defeat the point of having local government. If politicians can't get their hand in the cookie jar, what's the point?

freejazz4• 26 days ago

"Lengthy community dialogue" is your assumption

susiecambria• 26 days ago

Yes, rules are absolutely necessary. And community engagement is also essential. Community input might be tiring, frustrating, and the like but people get to speak as part of the process and because they have a right to.

justcool393• 26 days ago

in a lot of cases, the leaders of the communities are not following the rules. (see the ppl talking about ndas and such)

in any case, this isn't like "oh we don't want to build an apartment building because it might drop the value of a single family home halfway across town."

it isn't even like "we want to build this train line which will have some negative externalities but the positive effects (and externalities) are worth taking a hit in some areas"

the problems with the datacenters are that like (1) the service its providing (LLMs) has dubious societal value, (2) the direct negative effects such as noise pollution and such have been pretty well documented, (3) the indirect negative effects like massive strain on infra and (4) the people pushing them most heavily are effectively attempting to invade the communities, peddle conspiracy theories about "china" being behind the opposition, and demand to be specially treated because they were bankrolled by big tech, etc.

some people when this topic come up act like anyone opposed is some nimby who hates societal progress or smth and who is super concerned about that their home estimate might go down. but like communities do recognize the need for zoning and restricting certain things being built.

you need the thing being built to both (a) actually be a good that helps the community (or have a very very good reason why some damage to the community is justifiable (datacenter projects generally don't) and (b) need to contain negative externalities (which is why we don't put the chemical plant next to the elementary school even if it's the most economic option). people recognize these things on some level.

oatmeal1• 26 days ago

In general yes, but a datacenter is to many people a categorically different kind of development because they oppose AI companies. The first datacenter should trigger a lengthy discussion and create rules that apply to all further datacenters.

esalman• 26 days ago

Is this why you're in the minority?

simianwords9• 26 days ago

This devolves into NIMBY.

nobodyandproud• 26 days ago

Are those NDAs enforceable? That’s a major governance gap and problem if so.

enoint• 26 days ago

Some information is legally required for them to disclose, if they’re acting in their official capacity. I feel like development on public land is too big to hide.

anthonypasq9• 26 days ago

I can tell you, based on local examples, that politicians are setting up deals to bring in data centers without trying to build community support first. Not only that, they are often signing NDAs that prohibit them from telling voters what they have agreed to. It's no way to operate in a democracy, and voters are right to be angry.

People believing they are entitled to dictate what other people do with their property, or believing they should have some say in the "character" of their neighborhood that involves non-public land just doesnt make any sense to me.

Why do people think that because they have a house somewhere they should get the ability to freeze an entire town in time and disallow anyone to build anything. Seriously, where did this mindset come from?

mattmatheus• 26 days ago

NIMBYism has been popular for a long time. People really do want datacenters (or at least, the things that having datacenters enable).. they just want them somewhere else.

rescripting3• 26 days ago

This may come as a surprise to you, but people like living in pleasant surroundings.

Just because I own the land does not mean I can open an abattoir next to an elementary school.

Using land in different ways results in externalities that affect those around it.

The people of a community should have some right to protect themselves from those externalities. How that happens in practice is a deeply flawed, messy, ugly process, but collectively deciding where to draw the line is part of living together as a community.

jyounker2• 26 days ago

People believing they are entitled to dictate what other people do with their property, or believing they should have some say in the "character" of their neighborhood that involves non-public land just doesnt make any sense to me.

Would you like me to buy the lot next to your house and set up a 3000W sound system pumping noise music 24 hours directly at your bedroom? Because that's what you're arguing for.

ajross• 26 days ago

People believing they are entitled to dictate what other people do with their property, or believing they should have some say in the "character" of their neighborhood

So... iron smeltery next door for you then? Acid rain?

Come on. There is reasonable concern for property rights and civil coexistence and then there's Randian Libertarian Claptrap, and you've hopped right into the deep end.

YES, government has a clear and obvious interest, as a matter of principle, in the regulation of land use and development. This doesn't change just because you think the government made a wrong decision in a particular instance. The solution is to fix the government. Go vote for datacenter candidates. Seems like no one else is.

_doctor_love2• 26 days ago

Your argument makes sense until you have a horrible neighbor. You can see it in action in a state like Montana which to my knowledge prohibits housing covenants. Want to park 12 cars that are rusting in your front yard? Do it! Neighbors can't do anything about it. But that does have the effect of lowering property value and degrading the neighborhood.

jvanderbot• 26 days ago

Strong private property rights have to come with some protections against others' externalities - otherwise your property is harmed.

vkou2• 26 days ago

People believing they are entitled to dictate what other people do with their property

If the data center existed in a vaccum, with no inputs or outputs, this argument would hold some weight.

Instead, they stress limited water supplies, cause power shortages, increase GHG emissions (which we, the public ultimately have to pay for, either through mitigation or dealing with the damage after the fact).

Oh, and also they may well have negative externalities to employment. They definitely have negative externalities to communication, the internet has been flooded with AIshit.

singleshot_• 26 days ago

People believing they are entitled to dictate what other people do with their property

Yes, I believe that’s called “society” and while we are all very disappointed about your personal liberties I’m afraid some compromises had to be made to allow people other than you to have property rights too.

kokanee• 26 days ago

So many of these conversations come back to the problem of privatized gains and socialized losses.

Most things that create value have externalities. I kill the moss on my roof, then it rains and the chemicals go into the stream, then you try to go fishing and get skunked. I exerted my freedom as a private property owner and got the benefits; you paid for the drawbacks. We're all pulling from the same pile of resources, and the Earth doesn't care where your picket fence is.

Data centers incur expensive externalities and you're asking the general public to bear those costs -- or "pay those taxes," if that resonates more. I suppose NIMBYism is part of it, but we're not talking about ugly condos here, we're talking about towns running out of electricity: https://fortune.com/2026/05/12/lake-tahoe-data-center-49000-....

outside1234• 26 days ago

Are you from Texas? Because Texas is what you get with a policy like that.

nozzlegear2• 26 days ago

Amen, NIMBYs have ruined this country. Abolish zoning laws and nuke the suburbs, yeeclaw!

_DeadFred_3• 25 days ago

Zoning is a promise from the government 'invest in a house (which is most people's largest investment in life) here and we guaranty we will work on our side to make sure it is fit for purpose (a good place to live/you won't lose money).'.

These private property owners you are concerned about normally bought the land with these difficulties you are worried about priced in to the land's value. Why should to government hand them free money in the form of not enforcing what has been priced into the land value?

esikich10• 26 days ago

I don't understand why people think they should be able to vote on things like this. Especially when they lack the necessary credentials to have an informed opinion on it.

_doctor_love2• 26 days ago

I mean, why do we let people without property vote in the first place? It's really only people with a vested interest who have something at stake.

sanid• 26 days ago

So what are the topics people should be able to vote on? I don't think people have the necessary credentials to vote on immigration, drug price regulation, social media regulation? Why let people vote at all, they don't know anything apparently.

ozim3• 26 days ago

I was living in a touristic area.

Guess what was happening, local politicians were treating long term residents as trash in the face of big hotels/apartments who had loads of money.

Fun part was that those apartments/hotels wouldn’t hire locals but rather people who would drive like 20-30 km away.

Bad deal all way round for locals but of course local government people would pocket their share one way or the other if not from outright bribery.

TurdF3rguson• 26 days ago

You live in a touristy area because you have a tourism-related job, right?

Because where are the tourists supposed to stay if there's no hotels?

pibaker• 26 days ago

Fun part was that those apartments/hotels wouldn’t hire locals but rather people who would drive like 20-30 km away.

This is also true for data centers. They tell you there will be new jobs, but what they don't tell you is the people working there will be employed by an established contractor and driving in from the nearest metro area, not the locals.

hammock2• 26 days ago

It ought to be illegal for a publicly elected official to enter an NDA like that. It goes against the same principles that are the reason why we have things like FOIA

simianwords9• 26 days ago

This is because there's a new political divide that makes the old left vs right obsolete: it is neo-luddites vs tech optimists. It cross-cuts against the old and outdated political compass.

Neo-luddites are usually the educated elite and genealogy is from old green or left politics but includes nationalists and social conservatives.

I think media is broadly failing to recognise this new clan.

pesus9• 26 days ago

The current far right government/movement (aka conservatives) is far more in favor of AI than people opposed to them. You seem to be labeling just about everything as the opposite of what it actually is. Are you invested in or working at an AI company?

simianwords9• 26 days ago

I think your view is too simplistic and falls easily into the populist narrative so you end up mislabelling me as being invested.

You are again doing the thing I flagged in my original comment - the left right or progressive/conservative axis is not useful anymore. As an example: a lot of tech CEO's were originally against Trump but ended up caving precisely because the left became anti-technology broadly.

From experience and anecdotes, tech and AI optimism cross cuts into the old axis. Examples

1. third world countries are way more optimistic about AI than first world

2. many celebs (for the lack of better word) are pro AI - look at Redis, Django, NodeJS, Github

3. the existence of Effective Altruism itself should prove that this axis is useless - EA was largely leftist and support democrats while also being "pro" AI like Anthropic is mostly made from the EA cult

The nomenclature also doesn't make sense to me. Why would conservatives not conserve but rather push for progress? What are conservatives conserving instead? The academic consensus is that technology determines the societal culture and if conservatives wanted to conserve anything, they would conserve technology first wouldn't they?

socalgal22• 26 days ago

I know I’ll get downvoted into oblivion but I can’t help but think data center and ai backlash manufactured or is a psi-ops campaign by Russia or China

It doesn’t make any sense to me as the externalities are future not current and at no other point in time has the public cared about the future without first seeing concrete examples of harm. That hasn’t happened yet for data centers nor AI. It’s all “if, maybe, sometime in the future”

People will claim real harms but the connections are spotty at best. So it feels like people are stirring the pot. like if not Russia or China then just influencers doing it for rage bait for likes and subscribes

I’m not saying they are wrong, I can’t predict the future, I’m only saying it feels unusual for the reasons mentioned above

TSiege• 26 days ago

Almost every major issue has bot networks from hostile countries playing both sides of any issue to intentionally cause chaos. I completely agree that russia, china, or some other country is fomenting anger here.

That and the other issues aside, I think AI companies have done this to themselves. They've gone around talking about replacing all human labor and becoming the companies that control robot god's that swallow the entire economy and put everyone out of work and might destroy man kind. Well saying that is gonna make people hate them and that will find an outlet somewhere

catapart2• 26 days ago

so what makes you think that you aren't responding to a bot intending to sway your opinion by giving a shape to your preconceived notions so that your position crystallizes further, right now?

jrnichols• 26 days ago

From folks I've talked to in real life, it really does seem that way. They're getting their information from Facebook but it's mixed in with the "5G towers are killing all the bees" and the usual anti-vaccine rhetoric. Seeing that erin brockovich has jumped on the anti-data center bandwagon makes it even more suspicious to me.

logicchains3• 26 days ago

OpenAI literally found Chinese accounts trying to use ChatGPT to generate anti-datacenter propaganda: https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-...

xavdid• 26 days ago

People will claim real harms but the connections are spotty at best.

This is a wild claim because it's trivially provable. There's been tons of reporting around the effect they have on the immediate vicinity, and that's without even getting into the unknown long-term effects.

Here's a decent piece, but there's plenty more out there if you look at all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8TDOFqkQA

Is every single mad person doing investigative reporting and / or living next to a data center? No. But something doesn't have to personally affect me to know it's harmful.

socalgal22• 21 days ago

Is it not trivially provable. That video you linked to is sensationalized. You can do the same to almost any topic.

At the start of the video they claim data centers are being built in growing neighborhoods as though it's a conspiracy. Everything is being built in growing neighborhoods, that's the defintion of a growning neighborhood. Speaking "Coffee shops are growing in XYZ city" in ominous tones doesn't make it actually ominous.

They when go on to say there are 4x the data centers since 2010. Streaming TV went from 10% to 98% between 2010 and 2025. And there are plenty of other similar things (spotify, youtube, tiktok) that need data centers. In other words, consumer demand. Don't want the data centers, stop using them. I'm sure HN traffic also grew

The entire video is just digging up random stuff and trying to make it sensational. Oh, you can hear birds near data centers if you filter out the noise? That's true of basically everything, freeways, roads, bread factories, veg canners, etc... They're sensationalizing random common facts to make a ragebait video.

exabrial2• 26 days ago

Ah the power of Social Media manipulation. https://www.axios.com/2026/06/05/china-fueling-us-data-cente...

Allegedly.

Another groups claims false flag operation. Ain't it great?

vinniepukh• 26 days ago

you believe this?

exabrial2• 26 days ago

I'm pointing out there are two groups blaming each other. I don't know which is right.

But I absolutely believe that social media's agenda is a directed agenda.

logicchains3• 26 days ago

Even OpenAI believes it, and found concrete evidence: https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-...

mjhay3• 26 days ago

Ah, Axios. The same great outlet that has gotten the scoop on the Iran war ending numerous times.

rvz• 26 days ago

AI is hated far more than crypto.

No other technology gets as much hatred as AI is getting as the public see that as a threat to their own jobs.

Of course techies here are having trouble understanding this backlash. Maybe they should read up a bit on the Unabomber Manifesto to draw parallels on the motivations of the awful attacks against CEOs recently.

Just like crypto, you cannot use it to solve social problems with technical solutions. The same goes for AI as it still requires humans and trust to use it effectively.

The more AI data centers get built, the more it is hated and the worse society gets with this loss of trust as more people read about more mass layoffs.

pantsforbirds• 26 days ago

I've never seen the level of anti-scientific, straight misinformation as I have with data centers. I genuinely think it's to the point where the antivaxxers have a stronger scientific backing for their stance.

It did not feel organic at all. It's to the point now where that initial seeding of ideas has gained legitimate traction, but the initial burst of anti-datacenter content was wild to see in real time.

logicchains3• 26 days ago

It's absolutely not organic: https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-...

deschutes• 26 days ago

What is so objectionable about data centers anyway? That they consume utilities without employing a substantial amount of people? Compared to actual manufacturing like fabs the pollution concerns are laughable. The water use issue seems to be a wedge.

recursive2• 26 days ago

Data centers are where AI comes from.

esikich10• 26 days ago

I live in an area built on paper mills. Our rivers are trashed from the paper mills. It smells bad in areas because of paper mills. Paper mills use a lot of electricity. But people are absolutely losing their minds over the pollution from proposed data centers. I'm not sure there's a cleaner industry in existence.

e403• 26 days ago

What the comments fail to point out (and I haven't read the article to find out if they address it): the number of data centers being built is based on speculation of need and is a dramatic over-estimate. It has to be. What, other than AI has happened in the last few years that would warrant that many new data centers? How do they know there will be customers for that capacity? There will not be advances in algorithms, etc that do AI much more efficiently? (We know China is making strides in that!)

It's complete speculation! It's the new gold rush and everyone wants a data center. Most of these data centers might not even be built! And the ones that are, might never make any profit.

therealdrag02• 26 days ago

It doesn’t “has to be”. You’re speculating just as much.

e403• 25 days ago

I don't think so. Look at these numbers:

  | Year | Capacity (GW) | Construction Spending |
  | 2015 | 0.2 – 0.3 GW  | $1.8 Billion |
  | 2016 | 0.3 – 0.4 GW  | $2.2 Billion |
  | 2017 | 0.4 – 0.5 GW  | $3.1 Billion |
  | 2018 | 0.5 – 0.6 GW  | $4.5 Billion |
  | 2019 | 0.6 – 0.7 GW  | $6.2 Billion |
  | 2020 | 0.8 – 1.0 GW  | $8.0 Billion |
  | 2021 | 1.2 – 1.5 GW  | $10.0 Billion |
  | 2022 | 2.0 – 2.5 GW  | $15.0 Billion |
  | 2023 | 3.5 – 4.0 GW  | $20.0 Billion |
  | 2024 | 6.4 GW        | $35.0 Billion |
  | 2025 | 8.5 GW        | $46.0 Billion |
  | 2026 | 13.6 GW       | $50.7 Billion |

2026 figures represent full-year capacity projections and annualized construction spending rates.

There is absolutely no way that increase was planned due to precisely planned for capacity. It's speculation.

bamboozled2• 26 days ago

"Voted backlash", nothing will change.

teravor2• 26 days ago

even if datacenters aren't good for the communities there are in, it would be much worse if China advances in AI faster.

this is one of the core flaws in democracy, while the popularity contest generally curbs blatant abuse (also note how even that fails miserably when the electorate groups start to hate each other), the vast majority of people have no real way to judge the impacts of non-trivial decisions and judgement doesn't even need to come with certainty, just knowing which risks are worth it. voters will never get it right.

and in the information age, democratic sabotage is many times easier than informing a public that in most cases has no interest in being informed when the group think/herd instincts are triggered.

i suspect democracy only worked well thus far because it was never truly real. media was always concentrated and there were no non-democratic peers. this is no longer the case. when the media was concentrated democracy was just an emergent properly of media dynamics. now it's chaotic and subject to external targeted perturbation.

ok1234562• 26 days ago

I think China "advancing" faster is better. Hoarding some magic numbers on a hard drive isn't a sound business plan, and shouldn't be what we're betting the farm (literally) on.

teravor2• 26 days ago

they are only releasing open weight models to damage the closed off US AI corpos.

while the next GLM model may get a similar open release, I doubt the one after that will.

miiiiiike17• 26 days ago

It’s reaching the point of absurdity in my area. People are bringing “All data centers are flammable” signs to city meetings.

A plot of land that’s already zoned for the heaviest of industrial activities, is across the street from a dump, 3 miles from an airport, 16 miles from a nuclear generating station, and in a region with good climate, and no water crunch is a pretty good place for a data center.

Facts don’t matter, it’s a religious fight. Even if you provide numbers specific to the local area there’s no way to pierce the rhetoric.

Too much land? I added up lol the land used by the 10+ golf courses in the area. Dwarfs the proposal.

Too much water? I called the head of the parks department and asked them how much water the golf courses that they operate use each year. Massive.

Regional electricity costs going up? Our nuclear generating station already sells 80-85% of all power generated wholesale to other markets.

Data centers are loud? I measured the noise outside of my house. I live on a busy street. It was much louder than the viral videos going around Facebook with titles like “Data center noise from my porch SCARY MUST WATCH”.

I don’t know about all proposed data centers everywhere, but the one they’re eyeing to build in my backyard is fine by me.

I lived in Northern Virginia for years. Data centers are everywhere.

It’s really hard to explain that centers aren’t bad and are actually far more efficient than the alternatives. Just don’t run them on coal, natural gas, or the souls of orphans. And don’t rely exclusively on evaporative cooling if it’s in the desert.

They’re having fun treating tech people like villains. It was the same or worse with bankers back in 2008-2010. Anything I have to say, any data provided, any comparisons made, are biassed because I “use data centers”. When I explain that they use data centers as well, I get the finger.

When I talked to an anti data center family member who runs a local Facebook news group (5,000+ subscribers) they just kept sending me Google AI summaries as counter points… My god. I don’t even use gen AI.

People want to enjoy the benefits of progress and data centers while still being loudly “moral”. All of this on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. How many data centers are involved to get a post from poster to viewer? 2? 3? 8?

A bad data center project proposal somewhere should not mean opposition to data center projects everywhere.

spencerflem4• 26 days ago

One refrigerator sized rack at a datacenter takes as much power as 150 homes, and they’re using it for technology that disempowers and annoys people. It’s pretty obviously offensive.

All for rezoning golf courses too

anthonypasq9• 26 days ago

One refrigerator sized rack at a datacenter takes as much power as 150 homes

Is this supposed to scare me or something? I can't even fathom the actual point you are trying to make if it doesn't involve me having an emotional response to this statement.

xp84• 26 days ago

Nobody's shutting off those 150 homes to take their electricity, though. They have to buy it themselves. Lots of industrial things take tons of energy, from metal smelting to food production.

Oh, and datacenters alone shouldn't even make electricity more expensive, because rates are regulated. The state regulators have to approve rate raises. Now, are the regulators a bunch of stooges captured by the utilities who always do their bidding? Probably! But that's a good reason to throw your corrupt state politicians out of office and hopefully run them out of town on a rail -- not to protest datacenters.

parineum2• 25 days ago

One refrigerator sized rack at a datacenter takes as much power as 150 homes

Are you counting the externalized data center use of the people in that house?

lelandfe• 26 days ago

Surely you have some measure of empathy for their position? I’m sure you certainly did in 08, as people lost their homes.

I think it’s a topic that’s scary to many and this datacenter-to-be, or the local banker, just happens to be what they can easily protest.

miiiiiike17• 26 days ago

2008 is apples vs oranges. The proposed data center site is across the street from the dump, just south of the airport. It’s zoned for heavy industrial use.

Literally anything that they could build there other than a data center would have a greater negative impact on the environment and a far less positive economic impact.

I could build a concrete crushing plant there.

parineum2• 25 days ago

I’m sure you certainly did in 08, as people lost their homes.

It's funny that this is such a common takeaway from 2008. The bankers are bad because people lost their homes.

It's the right guilty party and the right victim but not the right crime.

The bad thing was bankers irresponsibly putting those people in homes in the first place. The people were always going to lose those homes because they couldn't afford them.

oulipo22• 26 days ago

You realize that "golfs are even worse so why people complain" is not a serious argument?

miiiiiike17• 26 days ago

That’s not the core of the argument. You know that.

I’m putting things into perspective for people who are terrified that the last drops of their potable water and going to be used to generate a meme video.

micro25885• 26 days ago

But in PJM they are almost entirely being powered by natural gas and coal? Even if you contract out power from a nuclear plant some other plant on the grid is now enjoying a higher capacity factor, at the margin natural gas.

The data center in question in Utah was marketed as a 9GW full build out natural gas facility more than twice the electrical generation of the entire state. Coal electrical production in the US increased 13% last year.

miiiiiike17• 26 days ago

I don’t defend every data center everywhere. I’m talking about the proposed data center about 11 miles from my door.

In my area we have a nuclear generating station 16 miles from that site. It sells 80-85% of all power generate wholesale to other markets. We have the power infrastructure here.

qurren3• 26 days ago

It’s really hard to explain that centers aren’t bad and are actually far more efficient than the alternatives.

This isn't about efficiency, power, water, or fire. AT ALL.

Massive amounts of people have their jobs and livelihood threatened. The datacenters, which are enabling that, are being deployed in their neighborhoods while everyone in that neighborhood goes jobless. There is no plan of relief in the form of better economic policy, UBI, less taxation of actual humans, or anything else. That is the real crux of what is being fought.

miiiiiike17• 26 days ago

I’ve noticed that people conflate being anti data center with being anti AI.

I don’t have any faith in the current crop of gen AI. I think it’s junk. I don’t think it’s replacing humans in drives. I can barely get it to refactor Sass code into a mixin.

Even if the AI bubble pops the world isn’t going to need fewer data centers.

If a speculator wants to create a bunch of construction jobs, build a site in a region with the power, water, climate to do so responsibly, and give us a bunch of money in property taxes. I’m for it.

I don’t care if his company folds and he loses his shirt. Someone will operate the data center.

They can’t get back the money they injected into the community during construction.

Eat while there’s food.

twoodfin• 26 days ago

“Everyone in that neighborhood goes jobless”?

The US unemployment rate is currently 4.3%.

williamdclt• 26 days ago

You're not wrong that the position of many anti-datacenter people isn't entirely rational (in the sense of "backed by solid numbers"), but you're entirely missing the point of why they are angry.

Consider this:

    - People are struggling more and more financially, with income that does not keep up with inflation
    - People are seeing inequality rise with the ultra-rich getting ultra-richer
    - People are seeing climate change quickly changing their environment for the worst: droughts, heatwaves, storms...
    - People are expecting climate change to make their financial prospect worse, too

And now, they see a wave of building datacenters. Not only do these data centers have externalities for the climate, but their _purpose_ seems like a negative: putting their jobs at risk because AI, redirecting this wealth to the ultra-rich. There's nothing for them in this, it's lose-lose!

And they see their own government encouraging and subsidising these projects, how could they not feel betrayed?

People want to enjoy the benefits of progress and data centers while still being loudly “moral”.

I don't think so. People would rather these benefits weren't there, but people exist in society and balance principle with practicality. You're allowed to criticise how AI is being brought into society while also using AI yourself, moral purity isn't a requirement to having opinions.

miiiiiike17• 26 days ago

No, I know why they’re angry.

Hell, I don’t even use gen AI, I still think it’s unreliable junk.

However, most of the things that the people in my community are concerned about don’t apply to our region specifically. We’re actually in a position to benefit GREATLY. It’s useful to have that conversation.

irusensei• 26 days ago

This goes to every LinkedIn brain idiot spouting recycled nonsense about the new Industrial Revolution and that white collar jobs are going away. These blabbering idiots never read a story book to understand the time period, that people displaced by industrialization were uneducated illiterate farm workers in a period in time before democracy.

Jump today most countries stable enough to build infrastructure are democracies and the white collar people you are demonizing do vote and that immense investment in infrastructure is not really easy to relocate.

metaopai• 26 days ago

Datacenters are a hedge the investor class is pushing and it's not really needed.

Once you realize:

1) LLM = CPU 2) Session Context = L1, L2, L3, CPU Cache

the entire AI industry is operating within the CPU cache of the LLM provider this is why cost moves quadratically, increases noise - signal ration, regenerative feedback loop, it dilutes the user narration, and it actually creates an architectural induce hallucination.

We've literally solved this problem in the 1960's with a memory architecture:

the OS has a memory controller, tasked with taking data from persistant structure storage (HD) loading into CPU Cache and the CPU computers, the output is stored in RAM and then moved into HD.

this is required on all AI applications, what the industry has done, is supplement a RAG which is summarizing context, however the entire context summarized chain is still being processed by the LLM.

if you employ a well sustain memory architecture you can retrieve the context you only need to feed to the llm. reduce token cost and then reduce energy therefore less demand of datacenters.

checkout my article and what i built metaop.ai it's a humble promotion but no one cares about ai memory. https://x.com/metaopai/status/2070187664192524528

duxup• 26 days ago

It’s so strange, we’ve been building data centers for ages without being a jerk about it…

VaderAi• 26 days ago

If data centres use gas turbine engines they would be far better off to not affect power in those areas of communities

qsxfthnkp2322• 26 days ago

Maybe we should charge data centers double the tax rate so that they can fund that universal welfare and healthcare all the ai ceos keep talking about when we all are out of work.

There no reason to give them tax breaks. They don’t do anything of substance to the local economy.

Data centers trigger voter backlash

Related Stories