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This datacenter stuff is such populist brainrot.
by AuthAuth 4mo ago
This datacenter stuff is such populist brainrot.
- october8140 4mo agoI take it you don't live next to a data center.
- pesus 4mo agoIt does seem most of the pro-AI people aren't actually affected by any of the negative aspects of it. It's a lot easier to be in favor of something that doesn't actually affect you or anyone you care about.
- rcpt 4mo agoMost everybody isn't affected by data center build outs.
- pesus 4mo agoMaybe not, but the people near them sure are. And the majority of people are definitely impacted by the downstream effects.
- rcpt 4mo agoThey really aren't.
- pesus 4mo agoVery well thought out argument, I'm sure spamming it some more will really convince people. You're telling me people aren't affected by AI in any way whatsoever? That's a very bold and obviously untrue claim. No wonder people don't trust AI sycophants, you can't even keep your story straight.
- rcpt 4mo agoThe water usage is floating point error compared to ethanol and the electricity prices near the centers are some of the cheapest you can get. In terms of the physical world this is maybe the lowest impact industry in history.
- georgemcbay 4mo agoSome people have empathy for those who are, even if they are not. I don't live anywhere near SpaceX's methane monstrosity in Memphis, but I still think it shouldn't exist because of the negative impact it has on the people who live near it. And I still think Anthropic became fully complicit by renting it out.
- 47282847 4mo agoI often see empathy being mentioned in places where I can totally see the self-preservation link: if other people are negatively affected, it will sooner or later also affect me personally negatively. I am totally fine with seeing empathy and compassion as tools for self-preservation, without assigning any morality to it. Unless I kill you and all of your tribe and anyone else who cares about you, not caring about your needs will backfire on me. It simply makes rational sense to see what you need and make you happy so I can stay happy too.
- whamlastxmas 4mo agoWhat negative impact is that? For context there are only five houses within half a mile of xAI's data center, the building for which has been there for decades, and any homes in the area have been living by the existing giant natural gas power plant next door to the data center for 20+ years. It's really not introducing anything that hasn't been there forever
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- Tanoc 4mo agoIt appears to be not so much about the datacenters themselves as it is limiting the growth capabilities for the LLMs. From their understanding fewer datacenters means more congestion which means less possibility LLMs can be shoved into more places where the public thinks they are intrusive. Which seems to be everywhere.
- rcpt 4mo agoCan't put new technology back in the box. We don't build the chips or even the machines that build the machines that build the chips. We don't own all the rare earths and our ability to generate electricity isn't anything special. The data centers are getting built. Up to us if it's in Utah or overseas.
- expedition32 4mo agoExcept the people living next to them but they don't count because reasons.
- rcpt 4mo agoNo they aren't.
- cratermoon 4mo agoEveryone pays for the negative externalities of these outsized water- and electricity-sucking, noise- and heat-generating monuments to greed and charlatanism.
- umeshunni 4mo agoVery similar to the pro-illegal immigration crowd
- aschla 4mo agoThat's a zoning issue the local residents should take up with their town/city.
- runtime_terror 4mo agoBut isn't the parent post implying objections to datacenters is just "populist brainrot"?
- aschla 4mo agoThe average person's inattention to nuance could be labeled as "populist brainrot" in this case, and the cases of poor zoning could be used as examples of the issues with datacenters that the average person does not evaluate with the proper attention to nuance.
- runtime_terror 4mo agoSure, the water use is often a simplified argument against these data centers, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons but they are in fact more nuances and context dependent based on the specific location.
- hunterpayne 4mo agoThe stated reasons are "populist brainrot". They aren't scientific or based on reality at all. What has happened is the AI folks have made themselves very very disliked. Saying you are going to take everyone's jobs will do that. So whatever they try to do, people will oppose it. It doesn't matter if the reasons are based in reality or not.
- runtime_terror 4mo agoSure, lots of people parrot the water wasting and it's often not true, but it came out of truth. There are communities that are on water restrictions where datacenters have no such restrictions (and pay less). It's also true after some datacenters opened the local aquifers were polluted. Then there are legit concerns about noise, air quality from LNG generators, etc Plenty of very legitimate reasons to dislike them, and each community likely has a different set of concerns.
- jldugger 4mo agoMost of the datacenters in my city are concentrated near the warehouse zoned area by the expressway, railroad and interstate leading to the airport. Basically nobody lives there, and those that do are probably much better off now that the diesel trains no longer running.
- phendrenad2 4mo agoI live near a datacenter, well, technically, there's a farm on one side and an abandoned factory on the other side. Tell me, is living in one or the other optimal to be able to participate in this discussion without being dismissed?
- Gormo 4mo agoHow would you know? I mean, I'm surrounded by lots of buildings, but I'm not usually aware of what's going on in ones I don't go inside of. There are lots of warehouse-sized buildings all over, and whether those buildings contain racks full of servers or something else entirely isn't something I'd immediately discern.
- cratermoon 4mo agoWhen they aren't located out in remote areas, data centers, like most undesirable industry, get located near communities of poor minorities.
- ralph84 4mo agoBig Tech isn't exactly doing a great job of marketing them. Saying they're for AI while doing mass layoffs attributed to AI isn't a winning message.
- testfoobar 4mo agoAny individual layoff is truly awful. But at the macro level, it is not really a big number so far. From ~2.48 million in 2023 to ~2.37million now. Or a 5% drop in employment in 3 years. Fred: All Employees, Computer Systems Design and Related Services (CES6054150001) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ces6054150001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ces6054150001
- rcpt 4mo agoNot much layoffs and they're probably due to the Trump #1 tax hikes on engineering anyway. But you can't say that without getting tariffed. Saying you're using AI is a much safer bet
- pesus 4mo agoYou'll need to compare how many job postings there are as well to get the full picture, especially for junior roles. That's one of the most contentious effects and has an outsized impact on society.
- bblb 4mo agoInteresting stats to look at. Is "Telecommunications" the only tech that's actually been steadily automating it's workforce since 2000: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES5051700001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES5051700001 edit: or is "Telecommunications" the old school landlines and such, and this is just the effect of the Internet
- defrost 4mo ago"Telecommunications" would have to, by any reasonable standard, include Telephonic Communications and the vast switching networks for voice. Clearly that's a domain that has been automating at the very least since the human operated plug and board switching centres with human operators that answered phones and hand routed calls left the network centres.
- umeshunni 4mo agoThere's a class of people who'll run with it - the same people who were protesting 5G towers 5 years ago.
- davkan 4mo agoWhat? The people against datacenter construction are absolutely not the same as the people freaking out about 5g towers. The latter share circle on the venn diagram with horse paste connoisseurs.
- Gormo 4mo agoPeople objecting to buildings existing on account of the possibility that other people might do things they don't like inside them are in the same category as horse paste connoisseurs, in my opinion.
- davkan 4mo agoThat’s a a ludicrous comparison. Not liking what people do in a building is the same as believing in baseless conspiracy theories? Regardless that’s not even why people are rejecting them. People are rejecting them because of what they do outside. Drive up power costs, take up space, use up water, raise the heat, make noise. And with almost zero upside for the community. The fact that they’re owned by unlikable charlatans training a product that takes away jobs just makes it easier.
- Gormo 4mo ago> Not liking what people do in a building is the same as believing in baseless conspiracy theories? Yes. Obsessing over what people you have no relationship with are doing in their own facilities based on loose-associative, emotion-laden reasoning that leads you to believe that they are somehow harming you is 100% the conspiracy-theory mindset. > People are rejecting them because of what they do outside. Drive up power costs, take up space, use up water, raise the heat, make noise. No, that doesn't seem correct. These qualities describe essentially all activity, especially economic and commercial activity. Every office building, factory, warehouse, school, hospital, housing complex, power plant, water plant, etc. also does exactly the things on your list. Any opposition to data centers that's statistically greater than the baseline opposition to any economic development (which perennially comes from certain quarters) can be reasonably attributed to worry about AI technology particularly. > The fact that they’re owned by unlikable charlatans training a product that takes away jobs just makes it easier. The fact that they're owned by unlikable charlatans is also a driver of motivated reasoning and conspiracy theories.
- aaron695 4mo ago[dead]
- davkan 4mo agoPeople don’t want to live next to a factory either. At least those make things and employ people in the community though.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]