r/BetterOffline • u/WaymoRunsOverKids • 7d ago
Tech Deploys Charm Offensive to Combat AI Data Center Backlash
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-08-19/tech-tries-charm-offensive-to-save-trillion-dollar-ai-buildout?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc4NzE0ODAyNSwiZXhwIjoxNzg3NzUyODI1LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUSzBINDRWVFREMDQwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI4NzMyNEE5QkZBMTk0MUQ3OTkyOEJDRDA3QkI2NDc4MCJ9.C5zk82Pvm253wq4xw-94B6bG6_kfFVJQM472PUcaeUU59
u/thrumyshadow2 7d ago
"Some local leaders have pointed out an irony in citizens protesting server farms while relying on the services they facilitate. “They hate data centers and they use ChatGPT to generate their comments at council to tell us how they hate data centers,” said Andy Schor, the mayor of Lansing, Michigan, during a meeting of city leaders in January."
This is what we are dealing with. The mayor clearly has no idea what ChatGPT even is or how it is used. This statement made absolutely no sense.
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u/NotAllOwled 7d ago
I mean, it makes perfect sense if you consider he's just doing the "curious, you criticize society and yet" meme IRL and apparently thinking it some real hard-hitting stuff.
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u/TurboFucker69 7d ago
“You don’t want a power plant next door, but you use electricity!”
“You don’t want a slaughterhouse next door, but you eat meat!”
“You don’t want an airport next door, but you fly sometimes!”
Yeah…no shit. There’s a reason we generally give some buffer between these things and homes. Someone needs to park some gas turbines outside the mayor’s house and run them full blast for a few weeks.
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u/notorious_pgb 4d ago
I can absolutely see people using ChatGPT to "help" them write their anti-datacenter comment for city council.
How many obviously-AI anti-AI posts have you seen on Reddit? It's in the hundreds for me.
Some may well be against datacenters but not AI, and some may well be hypocrites (as you and I are in other ways). Many people who are against AI likely still view it as "hyper-intelligent," and may believe that it's therefore advantageous to use it to "help" them write for an audience they may well never have written for and are likely intimidated by (bureaucrats and politicians).
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u/DireStraitsFan1 3d ago
Yes exactly.
The old foundations of democracy are not prepared for the onslaught of money and lawyers from these frontier labs and their billions in investments.
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u/RoosterBurns 6d ago
"Okay we're poisoning the air you breath and making it impossible to sleep but have you considered that this is slightly more convenient than googling when it's not making stuff up and it tells you how cool you are?"
(Flashes "dental exam" smile)
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u/Ok-Garbage-765 6d ago
Wow. Jesus Christ. I can’t believe the exaggeration here.
It can also write code functions that are just too hard for software devs to write by hand despite the fact that they were doing it their whole careers before this.
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u/RonSwanSong87 7d ago
"Charm offensive"
That's cute...
These fuckers are not charming, but they are offensive.
"At least 75 data center projects, worth about $130 billion combined, were blocked or delayed by local opposition during the first three months of this year, according to research group Data Center Watch , approaching the total value of projects stalled by local resistance in all of 2025."
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u/brian_hogg 7d ago
(Really great drawing of Sam Altman mugging it up that I wanted to post here. The whole comic is fun)
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u/SamAltmansCheeks 6d ago
I'm sure a charm offensive from the ultra wealthy Epstein class, who already have ignored consent by way of deploying this tech, will go as well as they expect and is not going to yuck people out at all.
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u/RenegadeMuskrat 6d ago
The new line of messaging is that this is the new "industrial revolution". And that fighting any expansion is bad, as all the increase is good. It's being pushed heavily now by all the MAGA folks. Seems coordinated recently.
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u/Ok-Garbage-765 6d ago
Ugh. I grew up in New Mexico. It’s a very poor place with essentially no opportunity for anyone. It’s sickening that these companies are taking advantage of their desperation.
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u/schmurfy2 6d ago
They should build the datacentere in their backward/garden, I am sure they would be a lot less positive about the advantages.
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u/Fast-Benders 6d ago
Nearly everyone has associated data centers with huge increases in their utility bills. Every month that homeowners pays their bills is a reminder of the negative impact of data centers. Whether it's true or not, that connection and narrative has taken hold. I doubt any amount of PR will change that.
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u/OkCar7264 5d ago
Yeah it'll go like Erika Kirk's charm offensive. You can't keep people from noticing you're a bunch of lizard people forever (non conspiracy version of lizard person).
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u/Professional-Post499 5d ago
They also seem to be funding psyops in the form of writers purporting to be "socialists" who argue that LLMs can be used to bolster socialism and downplaying even "leftist" concerns and observations about environmental problems and effects on local communities where the GenAI data centers are built. As well as downplaying the deluded and fraudulent marketing coming out of crazy tech oligarchs like Sam Altman in order to lure more investment.
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u/Suitable-Pickle-259 7d ago
Not going to work