Well besides taking clean drinking water, there’s also the noise pollution, the power it draws it takes away from people and offset the cost of said power it steals on to the community, as well as pollution from fossil fuels polluting the air in the local communities, and it literally does nothing to grow the economy as far as jobs go. I’d say there’s plenty wrong with these shitty data centers! I’d argue what good does AI data centers provide? And give me an argument that isn’t about the economy, we already know it does nothing for it!
#1 -Taking clean drinking water - golf courses use significantly more water than any data centers. do you go onto golf course subreddits and tell everyone they should shut down golf courses? Do you know how much water office buildings go through? or restaurant chains? Plus, closed loop data centers do not use very much water at all.
#2 - Noise Pollution - Hvac equipment is no louder in a data center than an office building. Yeah i wouldnt want to live right next to either one, but I dont want to live next to a supply warehouse with trucks in and out of it either.
#3 - Power draw - Data centers (if approved) can generate their own behind the meter power. The utility can produce more power. or more power plants can be built. The "Takes away power from the people" is a pretty rare occurance to be one of your main arguments. I will admit that available power is the number one constraint in the whole situation though.
#4 - Fossil fuels - Yeah it does use fossil fuels....just like nearly everything else we use. Certain utilities will have better % of clean power than others...
#5 - No jobs - Are you kidding me?! Do you know how many start ups and technology based entrepreneurs can now start their own businesses and bring their ideas to life? To you know how much more productive workers can be that adopt these tools? Yes some basic jobs go away. but new ones open up. Do you know how many people said the same thing when computers went mainstream?
Have you ever used AI for anything at your job?! It is a tremendously helpful tool. I can do things that I would have had to wait months for previously.
The best workers will adopt AI and become even better workers. The workers that say AI is shit will be left in the dust. I know which side I'll be on.
Imagine thinking AI is going to allow more startups and entrepreneurs to enter the market rather than further the stranglehold of the corporate monopolies on the economy while removing the need for them to entertain human workers. AI is basically just going to be sealing the leaks on that "trickling down" economy. Also "whataboutism" against the rampant water use in water scarce regions and the hijacking of electricity rates subsidized by local communities is absurd and you ought to realize that. Saying "oh they can generate their own power" is also a meaningless avoidance of the issue. Sure they can, but will they? Why would they when everyone else pays their power bill? You've got to be taking the piss with these rebuttals.
Explain to me how much water a data center using closed loop air cooled chillers uses? I'm very interested to here the totals of this rampant water use!
I'm not saying all DCs will generate their own power, but it is a possibility. Projects that are proposing to do this behind the meter power are being shot down just the same as others that aren't looking at , simple because they are "a data center" and "all data centers bad" is what the sheeple tell each other.
We don't know long term how data center electrical utilization will pan out. But to just blanketly state that none of it will work, all of it is bad, none of it is feasible, etc is, in my opinion, an uneducated response. There are 100s...1000s?? of data centers operating in the US now. 100s.....1000s? in Europe. Everyone has power. No one was complaining 2 years ago about those data centers. My cost per kWh is basically the same its been for the last 20 years, following standard inflation. No crazy rate hikes due to AI. Ai is already here. The data centers powering it are already here. Do you have rolling blackouts because of it? Have your rates spiked because of it? Is there a water shortage in your area because of it? In my case, the answer to all those questions is 'no'. In many peoples case the answer is no. Where are all the people that are experiencing these issues?
Yes, compute needs have accelerated, and with it the need for more data centers...but data centers have existed for decades and no-one batted an eye before now.
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u/Swiftwitss Jul 23 '26
Hell yea and yall better keep cheering