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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 would imagine "geopolitically-minded elites", more generally. There is no cosmic justice that would ensure the nation that protects its plebs from pollution, noise and unemployment will ultimately come out ahead, and it is quite plausible that China would eventually overtake the US in the AI race simply because they do not need to concern themselves with such things (or at least have more High Modernist solutions available to deal with them, like expropriating and resettling whole communities away from good datacenter locations). There are plenty of people who are more interested in the US as in some entity that has continuity with it winning than are interested in the good fortunes of every or even most of its residents.
There is no such cosmic justice, but I don't think it's going to get people to care when they feel threatened
The "China might overtake the US in AI development" risk is I think generally seen as either false, "so what," or "good, I like cheap stuff" whereas the current risks of be de-electrified or not having potable water is seen as existential
Other datacenter issues are more complicated, but it's worth noting that the risk of "not having potable water" is entirely imaginary, not existential.
In drought-ridden areas where water consumption is already a very politically sensitive issue, datacenter water usage is admittedly not risk-free
Though the water issue itself is probably more fear than reality. There's also some other issues like the instance where wellwater was poisoned with nitrates in at least one instance which probably contributes to the fears though I can find like a grand total of like 2 stories on water contamination (this and the Morgan County story).
I think there'd be alleviation of a lot of these concerned if these cooling loops could use gray water or something similar, but as it stands there's too much stuff in them
Was that a data center specific issue, though, or just "this could happen with any construction but we don't like this construction so we're using it as a negative example"?
It's not a datacenter issue in the slightest. The nitrate water didn't come from the data center. The data center was using the already-contaminated water for cooling, then passing it on to farmers (more concentrated through evaporation) for use as fertilizer. It was that ultimate use that contaminated the groundwater. Had that water been dumped out to sea or shipped to China or something, and the local farmers bought nitrate fertilizer from elsewhere, you'd have had exactly the same issue.
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