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Long time listener, first time caller.
The war on AI datacenters (and normal ones as a bit of collateral damage) has been going on for a little while now, with those opposed fiercely fighting a lot of these projects pretty much wherever, whenever. It seems to be one of the most bipartisan issues facing the country right now and those who are pro-datacenter have been effectively politically slaughtered. As of a few days ago though, there seems to have been a small little flash point in the thing. I haven't really seen a thread here about this (although definitely could have missed one), and I'm actually a little surprised at it since I do think this is probably one of the biggest culture wars in America of this year. Anyway, curious thoughts on this, etc
From what I can tell, the flashpoint was yesterday when Axios reported (and later posted) a letter from the Ohio RNC to AI companies effectively calling being pro-datacenter politically radioactive. It kinda exploded at this point over Twitter and later Greg Abbott put a thing out about it yesterday after enacting a pause earlier this month. Basically the only one who didn't respond in a politically obvious way was Trump in a presser who was quoted as saying "if I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center." I think this quote right here might be the worst strategic blunder since the Iran War. If I were the DNC, the clip would be on every station in the country
The reaction to these things are incredibly understandable. Their argument effectively goes "they use our water and electricity, provide a service to enhance the surveillance state and the interests of Big Tech, their proponents openly admit that they're gonna take your job, they bully communities, and they don't even pay taxes either, all the while poisoning the communities they leech on with pollution and noise." Personally, I'm honestly quite surprised that political radioactivity is the biggest thing that has happened so far. This seems to be an issue that unites people regardless of political party or affiliation...
...probably because it's being correctly seen as a existential threat to people's lives and livelihoods. Polling against datacenter construction is incredibly poor, arguably being worse than coal or nuclear power plants (yeah I know, different surveys). I think this, if I were to pin a spark on this (there are many), it's the story of the Memphis xAI datacenter and also the lawsuits against Solon Township to effectively bully them into allowing the project. Communities, seeing what happened there and politically, have somewhat backtracked quite a bit where before they were much more open to it. Some of those that haven't are proactively enacting outright bans
If this culture war has one side, who is the other? Silicon Valley, billionaires, etc, seems to be the obvious answer here.
Both Altman and Amodei screwed up public perception big time, although I don't think it's 100% their fault. I imagine though this is basically because they're put in a double bind. If it isn't absolutely economy ending for every other company, the trillions pumped into their valuation will vaporize faster than you can say "AGI," but people tend to believe (correctly so) when someone threatens them (and have especially checkered pasts as both these guys do), that their threats are genuine, so when those PR puff pieces trickle down to the public at large.
The All In guys have tried to pin this on Amodei in particular, but I think some people just see that as them talking their book
They've tried to label the opposition as "China," but that clearly doesn't make much sense given that the problems are genuine. Cremieux has tried to take up the mantle on the issue, but I think people see his arguments are seen as specious and as relying on theoreticals that don't match observations on the ground, and this has I think backfired
Expect to see more bans and moratoriums happening across the country. Will be interesting to watch. Thoughts?
I have not been following the issue closely, but FWIW to me there is kind of an astroturf vibe to this opposition to data centers.
Sadly, I've spoken to enough friends in real life to know that it isn't astroturfed. People are using all sorts of discredited arguments to argue against AI datacenters. It's all the worst parts of NIMBYism come to roost.
Are these friends the sort of people who more or less go along with the Latest Thing? For example, how did they feel about the Russian invasion of the Ukraine?
If your friends are real independent thinkers, then fine, but in my experience such persons are pretty rare. And if they aren't independent thinkers, the fact that they oppose data centers (arguably) is not evidence one way or another on the astroturf issue.
Perhaps I am misusing the word "astroturf" here. I don't dispute that there are a lot of real people out there who are opposed to data centers. I just get the feeling that there is some institution or government entity which is quietly rousing and encouraging the opposition. It reminds me of the anti-nuke campaigns in the 1980s
There isn't much of an opposite side on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Having conventional opinions on it is no more a sign of lack of independence than having conventional opinions on homeopathy.
I tend to disagree with this, but in the interest of avoiding a culture war skirmish, perhaps you can give me a few examples of popular views on the Latest Thing for which you would agree there is an opposite side?
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Surely the mark of a successful astroturf campaign is getting normies on the bandwagon.
This would be one of the most successful astroturfing campaigns of all time. If China was behind it, don’t you think they’d be putting a lot more emphasis on,”you know, all these data center chips come from Taiwan. Why are we subsidizing Taiwan’s defense only for them to suck all of our water?”
This doesn't strike me as a serious argument at all; I simply think better of China's psyop capabilities than to expect that they'd get distracted blatantly signaling that it's them by tying in their personal shoulder chips.
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Honestly, I believe every major issue is astroturfed to some extent, by opponents to get supporters to claim weakman arguments, and by “conspiracy theorist” influencers and news for attention.
This is a dynamic people don't pay nearly enough attention to, yeah. People are plenty capable of being stupid on their own, but there are also a million different actors playing the pied piper strategy in miniature, thinking of it as anything from a satirical social experiment to a well-oiled psyop.
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But who's planting those arguments in their heads?
Datacentres have existed for an awfully long time without anyone caring, now even obscure fora have posters showing up and raising the issue.
I'm not sold, but it kind of makes one think -- I'm increasingly close to being sold on covert China media ops driving the entire political conversation here in Canada, so it's not a crazy idea.
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To me, it's not very surprising, and seems genuine. Let's ignore the problems with the physical data centers for a second. There's been much ink spilt on the issue of water, electricity, noise, and general quality of life for the people who actually need to live next to these AI data centers. I'm not an expert, but it seems to me that some of those concerns are legitimate and some are not. The backlash against data centers seems to me to be an indictment on AI as a whole and the view of the future that has been, let's be honest, forced on us.
The average person's experience with AI is slightly positive at best. Maybe they use it as another, better search engine (with how trash Google has become, this is probably the most prevalent use of AI. Maybe they see some vaguely amusing AI slop on social media. Unfortunately, however, a lot of the average person's experience with AI is extremely disruptive and literally life ruining in some cases. It's not hard to find people who had their parents, grandparents, or friends completely one shot by AI on Facebook or companies replacing all customer service with AI agents, making it impossible to get any help. And don't even get me started on AI and its consequences on the job market. As if mass AI layoffs weren't enough, if you're searching for a job, you're now getting your resume reviewed by AI, interviewed by AI, and rejected by AI all before a human has ever seen your resume. People are resorting to using AI to apply to hundreds of jobs a day to have a chance. And when you get a job, you're being forced to use AI as a part of company policy. I'm not saying that a small slice of the population didn't make great productivity gains with the help of AI. I am saying, however, that these gains are simply not felt by the average AI user, let alone person.
All of that is to say nothing of the actual people who are responsible for AI. Everything I said before might even be acceptable if the people who ostensibly are responsible for selling AI to the public even vaguely resembled humans. Instead they loudly and often brag about how many jobs they've eliminated, how everyone's current way of life will be completely upended, and how everyone who does not enthusiastically support this is a luddite and should be left behind to rot as a permanent underclass. And by the way, the AI layoffs will continue. And not only that, they will actually accelerate. And actually we think it's a good thing that you're being rejected by AI hiring managers. And also, do you have any more of those subsidies that lets us build more of these?
Is it really, truly a surprise, then, that the average person is against anything and everything that supports AI?
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This seems like normal low-IQ people ranting and raving about hot topics. But this time, thé people on the other side are weird ultra-wealthy lizards with business interests that regularly get accused of being slightly evil by both sides of the aisle.
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It seems genuine to me. It's been brewing for a few months now at least although probably a bit longer. OpenAI alleged that "China" was responsible for astroturfing and so that's where that story came from, but they're obviously a little biased. I'm sure there is some sort of responsibility there but that's probably more a consequence of it becoming an issue rather than starting it in the first place
I think a lot of it came from the fact that electricity bills in a lot of places are soaring, and, if you're working in an IT or office environment, the prices for computer parts like RAM and SSDs have in some cases quintipled at best
It's been brewing for like 1.5 decades, I'd say this recent rapid buildout just made it topical and spread awareness.
Eh. So like I think people were mostly fine-ish with some sort of datacenter construction before the recent aggressive buildout, after all, people do use computers and internet and whatnot, but I only think it became a issue because of the rapid buildout and the cut corners thereof. They weren't loved (after all, who does like a big box) but they were tolerated
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You're probably not going to get much buy in to that stance here. Most of the readership skews urban, wealthy, and technocratic. They don't view the negative externalities as real problems.
The Chinese interference theory is a convenient way to avoid having to confront those externalities without asking why nobody's crying out to have Fort Mason Park paved over and converted to a data center using "temporary" gas turbines for power.
It's very similar to the "Russian election interference" narrative from 2016. Sure, you can probably dig and find something, but Facebook ads for Sexy Bernie coloring books do not a complete explanation make.
People just call it Fort Mason. Also, San Francisco already has multiple data centers in city limits, on the east side.
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I'm sure there's some of that, but NIMBY types and degrowth types don't need much motivation to oppose them as is. Plus all the AI haters.
I think this is a big part of the backlash much more so than the NIMBY or a degrowth mindset. AI, despite the use, seems to be deeply unpopular among some, and the datacenters are probably just the physical manifestation of this
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It's interesting that the Motte is considered significant enough to run the op on, too.
Hah, as soon as I read the word "astroturf", that was my thought too. We've had several threads about datacenters now, and there was even a weird one about how taking books apart to scan them is the equivalent of Nazi book-burning. In the thread above, OP has tried very hard to elevate the water "issue" to something real, and it's nice to see that he's failing. There are good anti-AI arguments out there that an educated crowd like us will take seriously. It's weird that there are some visitors who think it's worth their time pushing bad ones.
There's already enough degenerate literature and pornography on the internet you wouldn't think the ai companies would have to scan in more. Leave it to my out group to still be complaining about the time the boy scouts and student protesters burned their porn stash.
Wasn't that a specific workaround of a court ruling? That the companies could use books, as long as they a) had physical copies, and b) destroyed them as part of the process? So it was people getting upset over companies complying with a law, because it was never about what the process was, just that people didn't like the end result of "the companies trained AI on all these books".
I think that specific scenario was their preemptive fair-use strategy that was later upheld by the court.
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