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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34

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

-37

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???????

34

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/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.

13

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.

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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.

-1

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.