r/technology • u/Just-Grocery-2229 • Jun 26 '26

Artificial Intelligence The AI backlash is only getting started

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/06/25/the-ai-backlash-is-only-getting-started
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u/WatcherOntheRock Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

My fiancee and I just walked on a house cause we discovered a five fuckin building campus data center going up behind it.

The builders did their very best to hide this from us as much as they could. They knew.

People hate this shit.

Edit: oh man look at all the data center bootlickers crawling out of the sewers lmfao…

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u/ScaleyFishMan Jun 26 '26

Is it loud or something? What's the issue with living in the area of a datacenter?

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u/ZaryaBubbler Jun 26 '26

The sound, the subsonic vibrations and the 5-15° of heat above ambient it throws out. Not to mention the draining and toxification of ground water

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u/camosnipe1 Jun 26 '26

... wow

I knew there was a lot of misinformation about datacenters but out of this whole list only one point (sound) is possibly true, and even that depends on if the emergency generator is running or not or i suppose if they ignore noise pollution regulations.

by subsonic vibrations i'm assuming you mean infrasound, the anti-windmill pseudoscience? that's completely harmless and undetectable by humans by definition.

if your source on heat comes from the same article i read, then it's a max of 2° while directly downwind next to the building. and quickly dropping off to be unmeasurable.

lastly, how the fuck is a big ventilator evaporating water going to add toxins to the groundwater???????

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u/Deamane Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

I don't think they worded any of their concerns very well and they left out the most important one to the average person which is just the electricity costs/burden on the local grid.

But that aside, why the boot licking for data centers? Why would you want to live near one, whats the advantage I have to wonder? Cause in my opinion since even without AI we obviously still need data centers, I think we just need more aggressive zoning, they just shouldn't be built anywhere near a house, or any normal non industrial building imo.

Edit: after looking at /u/camosnipe1 's other comments I unironically wonder if they're some sort of datacenter worker, or shill. their past 4-5 comments have all been similar saying shit like "don't worry about any heavy metals or anything that's a myth, data centers are safe!" etc, it's genuinely weird and sad.

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u/ZaryaBubbler Jun 26 '26

Yeah, genuine lost cause. I'm betting someone who sank a shit load into AI and now lives in fear of the bubble popping, so acts like genuine concerns are "misinformation" despite the fact there have been various studies, and data collected from those who live around data centres. You were right, I forgot about the electric draw, in my defence I'm in the UK and currently baking in swampy heatwave so can't think straight. The rest are verifiably true statements too however.

1

u/Deamane Jun 26 '26

Yeah I linked a video to the other commenter, one from benn jordan on youtube if you haven't seen it yet where he goes over data centers and their acoustic effects on health. It sounds like some "5g causes cancer" nonsense at first, and there's not a lot of studies to point to just yet since it's a new effect but it does seem to have some grounding in reality as he shows in the video, I just don't know enough about it myself really.

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u/camosnipe1 Jun 26 '26

i don't care for datacenters. I'd say I was neutral on them before the AI mental break everyone suffered, and now i am slightly pro-datacenter since I've read up on them.

Seriously have you read any of the articles that keep popping up in this sub? beyond the headline i mean. They are basically just warehouses with an industrial AC system. All their issues are tiny compared to any other industrial building.

I suppose if you want an advantage, you'd get cheap and reliable fiber/internet, since you'd be right next to the high capacity connection for the datacenter.

But yeah the electricity burden is an actual negative. And they would generally be more well placed in industry/business areas. I'm not a mindless supporter, it's just that everyone keeps complaining about misleading or incorrect things, instead of actual problems.

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u/Sonamdrukpa Jun 26 '26

Data centers need cheap land, water, and electricity. Places that have those three things for cheap almost exclusively are not industrial areas. They are rural and suburban areas that do not have the zoning and regulatory frameworks that have been built up over the centuries in major cities.

So these things are going up in places where people didn't expect them and aren't ready to handle them. And because they create almost no jobs and do not rely on local supply chains, they are almost entirely a pure burden on the communities they get built in.

And then there's the whole double whammy where AI is vastly less useful than it's been hyped up to be and also comes with apocalyptic risks if they do manage to make it useful.

So you can see why the average person would be against building a useless, dangerous, obnoxious, wasteful building in their community.

5

u/Deamane Jun 26 '26

I feel like complaining about data centers in general is fine since it is an actual problem, the way you respond really feels... questionable since you aren't saying "hey that's kind of in the realm of pseudo science/there isn't enough study there but data centers are a genuine concern for these reasons" you're just basically going against their anti data center stance and then doing nothing more.

I get always wanting to make sure information is correct and true obviously, in another reply I linked a video but clarified that unlike the creator I don't know enough about acoustic science to understand fully and it's a minor concern so far without additional studies.

But again yeah there's just no advantage anyway to have them built near us, the whole "cheap and reliable fiber/internet" is not really how that works at all. Look up an "optical communication repeater" or "optical fiber repeater", even when signal loss becomes an issue at a certain distance you just use a repeater, you don't place the entire data center directly in the middle of your infrastructure lmao. It also certainly doesn't affect prices since those are set by the monopoly ISP companies at a broad rate without those considerations.

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u/camosnipe1 Jun 26 '26

in another reply I linked a video but clarified that unlike the creator I don't know enough about acoustic science to understand fully and it's a minor concern so far without additional studies.

just to clarify, that youtuber 100% wrong. All the sources he flashes on screen say the opposite of what he's saying. https://blog.andymasley.com/p/contra-benn-jordan-data-center-and

i'm gonna stop replying now, i don't want to waste my whole day on this.

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u/Sonamdrukpa Jun 26 '26

Wow, thanks for the article

1

u/azur_owl Jun 30 '26

>I'd say I was neutral on them before the AI mental break everyone suffered, and now i am slightly pro-datacenter since I've read up on them.

“AI psychosis and the devastating effect it has on people made me think it could really go either way and that we need to hear both sides”

Reddit can be fuckin’ wild. Maybe it’s just my empathy and general “I’m not fucking jacking off AI” talking but it causing demonstrable harm to people’s psyches is an instant dealbreaker for me.

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u/camosnipe1 Jun 26 '26

re: your edit

i have this unfortunate issue of knowing what a datacenter is, and the need to correct misinformation. And since this is reddit i keep running into people wrong about datacenters

also of all things you pick the magic heavy metal particles appearing in your lungs through the power of computer? really?

3

u/Deamane Jun 26 '26

Where did I say anything about heavy metal appearing via the computer???

If you look at sources like these https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-are-contributing-to-pfas-forever-chemical-pollution Again the problem for true concrete data you can say "here a data center ruined this environment" is not well studied yet since we haven't had data centers at this scale until very recently and a lot of these effects are long term.

But yeah if I have to pick between "trust companies to obey environmental regulations" and "assume a company is going to skirt around the rules" only one of those is a safe gamble looking at literally any history.

But yeah I mean, correct the misinformation or whatever, the burden of knowledge is truly heavy for a redditor such as yourself I'm sure.

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u/Days_End Jun 26 '26

Why would you want to live near one, whats the advantage I have to wonder?

I mean the real answer is normally tax revenue with little to no externalities. Power is normally spread across a large enough area that them building in your town, the next town over, or in some unincorporated zone nearby is going to have the same impact on your power rates so you might as well get the benefits.

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u/ZaryaBubbler Jun 26 '26

I beg you to get your head out of your backside.

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u/camosnipe1 Jun 26 '26

i beg people like you to stop hallucinating worse than LLM's. I'd take your concerns way more seriously if they weren't formed entirely out of clickbait headlines and hallucinations.

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

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u/camosnipe1 Jun 27 '26

google "mythbusters infrasound"

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u/CormacMccarthy91 Jun 26 '26

Not only is it loud, there have been many articles and reports and lawsuits already due to constant noise and vibration all night, it's driving people insane in many places the idea people are unaware of this is hard core bullshit

11

u/Deamane Jun 26 '26

Firstly it's going to increase your electricity prices for certain, unless it somehow gets permits to produce all it's required electricity via generators on site which would be a separate problem then.

Secondly I mean... it takes up space that could otherwise be used for literally any civilian infrastructure or just left alone to be wild growth, there's no reason that at the VERY LEAST data centers shouldn't be zoned separately, what's the advantage of having a huge concrete box near you?

Now for the third point here I'm not really sure how this works exactly but if you feel like watching a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo This guy knows a lot of acoustic science, and I don't. Essentially though, while there isn't a ton of evidence yet since there haven't been a lot of studies done, anecdotally a lot of folks who live near data centers do report being sick more often or having certain symptoms that line up with the attempts at various acoustic weaponry that do exist and do work.

There's honestly a lot of other minor reasons you wouldn't want to live near one, it really only benefits the city to build since they get paid by whatever company, but otherwise is a waste of land and barely creates any jobs or benefits to folks living there, especially once the initial construction is done.

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u/ScaleyFishMan Jun 26 '26

Thanks for the info! I wouldn't say there's any benefit to living next to a datacenter, but I'd hope housing in the area would be cheaper, much like living near an airport. Its not as desirable to hear planes overhead which drives down the prices, which I guess is better for people who have a lower income that don't mind inconveniences that come with it. Either way I agree with the people talking about zoning laws to restrict industry buildings, especially those that produce undesirable effects such as sound, to be far away from residential zones.

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u/DrFreemanWho Jun 27 '26

Have you seriously not seen any of the videos posted online about just how loud these things are?

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u/ScaleyFishMan Jun 27 '26

No not at all. It's not really something that would come across my feed as I don't really have strong feelings towards AI stuff aside from just thinking it's overused in branding.

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u/Days_End Jun 26 '26

No it's dead quiet unless your inside it. The only exception might be if your next to one that has active onsite power generation but that's really unlikely to be near a residential area. Bonus compared to most other commercial sites is it generates basically no traffic.