One under-discussed topic is whether Americans hate data centers in their neighborhoods, or whether they actually just hate gas turbine generators running 24/7 in their neighborhoods.
The gas turbine thing really is justifiably killing the public perception of data centers since the obvious message is that even if your local data center isn't destroying your quality of life with incessant noise, it's only because they have decided it's not in their best interest to do so right now and that decision could change at any moment. As long as that is a possibility ever, you'd have to be nuts to want a data center built anywhere near where you live.
It's sad. For all the lamenting that the US is losing industrial capacity (or lost it long ago), we can't even handle some of the lightest industry possible. A big building that hums and releases slightly warm water, and the only sector in which we could still be called a world leader.
Instead of trying to find property tax arrangements that work to give municipalities a big payoff, and power supply arrangements that could be an opportunity to boost the green and nuclear sectors, we have political hobbyists jumping on a bandwagon of misinformation.
A hum but 24x7 is devastating, and even a very little increase in water temperature can kill local fauna. Additionally you are occupying public space for a private profit.
I think it can't be categorized as NIMBYism because the underlying sentiment is not just no data centers in my backyard, but anyones backyard. It's about the AI project itself, even if it expresses itself differently for a local context.
I can speak from a relative perspective, at least for my state;
- The major Electrical provider has a terrible track record for improving overall reliability of service to local homes. The average outage time is 3x the normal average, and the percentages for rate increases always favor corporate customers vs residential. Yes, Residential often has more 'long tail' cost in outage scenarios but it should be better balanced IMO. but also our grid seems to be a bit stressed and adding that additional stress is a big concern.
- The water usage for these data centers is an unknown, and sure they can do a closed or mostly closed loop but we aren't getting any promises on that. My state is lucky enough to have a LOT of water around it, but we also have awareness about what industrialization has done to those waterways and the ecosystems that live in them. We don't need more problems.
- In fact we actually have an issue where communities have newish data centers, that frankly have ggravating shrill sound at all hours. [0] [1]
My 2 cents is that it’s more about market manipulation (by proxy) than anything. What happens if you convince consumers AI is bad and they shouldn’t approve small datacenters, is the next step regulations? Businesses (primary target) will still use it, people probably will too despite calling datacenters and AI bad. Then model regulations are the next logical target. And who will be regulated? The effect is exactly what OpenAI and Anthropic have been looking for.
How many of X/Amazon/Google/Anthropic/OpenAI data centers have been blocked? I’m going to bet that number is close to zero for any important projects they were planning, likely because they were approved before the real regulation pushes started.
Both sides are getting played with the same song that ends in AI regulations, which is bad for people and good for profits.
It’s all strategy and theater so people can find alternative cause to latch onto that can be steered so it doesn’t really hurt the big players but will ultimately lead to more regulations (and thus more profits).
> What happens if you convince consumers AI is bad
I get this isn't your primary point, but this line suggests people would have otherwise thought AI was good if it wasn't for some devious party convincing them otherwise. This is definitely not my read on the current environment. People think AI is bad because of its badness. The slop, the automated responses, the help bots, the being replaced at your job, and so on are just not popular.
Clearly hyperscalers are seeing datacenter commitment exceeding demand, and are now running PR campaigns to have the public push back against construction to get them out of their contracts.
Joking conspiracy theories aside, perhaps the over-commitment was part of the plan with the expectation that there will be rejections from government
The rumor is going around on X that foreign enemies of the US (especially China) are trying to influence Americans through social networks against building data centers.
Maybe it's my bubble, but most people around me who are against AI cite job loss and Replacement as their concerns.
And guess who has been boasting about replacing workers and making everyone unemployed by 2030? Certainly not china.
Maybe they say different things domestically but I don't even recall any Chinese AI personality going around preaching about the upcoming AI doomsday while also building the doomsday device themselves, either.
Interesting video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bbe-Ev-Yns) explains how water consumption is a nearly fixed unit per DC and will be the major limiting factor in DC growth. The physics of heat removal requires water at one stage or another (evaporative cooling at the DC, or cooling the power plant to generate power to dry-chill at the DC) and we have a finite amount of water.
Even if people weren't protesting DCs, we would hit peak DC when we run out of water, which isn't far off. A major drought will likely disable large amounts of the economy that depends on AI that depends on water.
Coming from a third world country (emerging/developing for the sensitive souls) .. and having many friends from former Soviet countries, one thing we all seem to agree on is the sheer luxury rich countries have .. it’s like a cancer of prosperity .. where a society becomes so successful that it starts attacking the very things that created its success ..
We see the same thing in the UK and probably lots of countries. Data Centres are large, expensive and secretive so most people will have all kinds of theories about why they are to be resisted at all costs.
* Job attrition because "AI".
* Blamed for high energy prices
* A totem for high wealth individuals
* A lot of building for not that many jobs
* In small countries like the UK, some are a massive blot on the landscape compared to their surroundings
Oh, but at the same time, we want everything to be cheaper. But not with AI. Or Data Centres.
The most surprising thing to me about the data center backlash is how surprised a lot of people in tech are about it. The public tradeoffs seem pretty terrible from the perspective of folks who aren't spending all day enamored with agentic coding loops, aka normal Americans. There have been a number of utility related scandals, with residential power bills doubling as data centers go in and water being illegally taken for their use. In the online arena most people are exposed to AI as social media slop and dumb chatbot features being crammed into every piece of software they use.
Long term, the goal for this buildout is to drive millions of people out of their livelihood. But maybe a rogue AI will go nuts before then and become even more catastrophic.
So people are looking around, seeing their physical space being worsened in order to make their digital lives worse, with the possibility of much more misery to come. No kidding they aren't a fan.
It's interesting that the companies building these haven't even tried to smooth over the public relations until recently. I get it, this is all terribly exciting for VCs and a subset of techies, but their inability to even comprehend the objections shows what an extreme bubble they are in. The rest of the country gets a vote, and snidely dismissing everyone else as a knee jerk NIMBY, or Chinese shill, or illogical moron isn't going to convince anyone.
Datacenters haven't been a huge problem until now -- it's 1) what they're being used for (AI that clearly benefits the largest companies and threatens to decimate jobs while providing little tangible benefits for the average person so far), and 2) the rate at which large companies desire for them to be built and the consequent demands on water and electricity at a time when these resources are already under considerable strain (not to mention that we're supposed to be _reducing_ energy production to mitigate the effects of climate change)
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[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 35.7 ms ] threadInstead of trying to find property tax arrangements that work to give municipalities a big payoff, and power supply arrangements that could be an opportunity to boost the green and nuclear sectors, we have political hobbyists jumping on a bandwagon of misinformation.
https://themeparkarchitect.com/go-away-green-disneys-paint-c...
- The major Electrical provider has a terrible track record for improving overall reliability of service to local homes. The average outage time is 3x the normal average, and the percentages for rate increases always favor corporate customers vs residential. Yes, Residential often has more 'long tail' cost in outage scenarios but it should be better balanced IMO. but also our grid seems to be a bit stressed and adding that additional stress is a big concern.
- The water usage for these data centers is an unknown, and sure they can do a closed or mostly closed loop but we aren't getting any promises on that. My state is lucky enough to have a LOT of water around it, but we also have awareness about what industrialization has done to those waterways and the ecosystems that live in them. We don't need more problems.
- In fact we actually have an issue where communities have newish data centers, that frankly have ggravating shrill sound at all hours. [0] [1]
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5XZJfF0kQ
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wDr2dec474
How many of X/Amazon/Google/Anthropic/OpenAI data centers have been blocked? I’m going to bet that number is close to zero for any important projects they were planning, likely because they were approved before the real regulation pushes started.
Both sides are getting played with the same song that ends in AI regulations, which is bad for people and good for profits.
It’s all strategy and theater so people can find alternative cause to latch onto that can be steered so it doesn’t really hurt the big players but will ultimately lead to more regulations (and thus more profits).
I get this isn't your primary point, but this line suggests people would have otherwise thought AI was good if it wasn't for some devious party convincing them otherwise. This is definitely not my read on the current environment. People think AI is bad because of its badness. The slop, the automated responses, the help bots, the being replaced at your job, and so on are just not popular.
Joking conspiracy theories aside, perhaps the over-commitment was part of the plan with the expectation that there will be rejections from government
And guess who has been boasting about replacing workers and making everyone unemployed by 2030? Certainly not china.
Maybe they say different things domestically but I don't even recall any Chinese AI personality going around preaching about the upcoming AI doomsday while also building the doomsday device themselves, either.
Even if people weren't protesting DCs, we would hit peak DC when we run out of water, which isn't far off. A major drought will likely disable large amounts of the economy that depends on AI that depends on water.
Maybe one day, Silicon Valley will learn that their insufferable arrogance is not a virtue for everyone outside of their bubble.
* Job attrition because "AI". * Blamed for high energy prices * A totem for high wealth individuals * A lot of building for not that many jobs * In small countries like the UK, some are a massive blot on the landscape compared to their surroundings
Oh, but at the same time, we want everything to be cheaper. But not with AI. Or Data Centres.
Long term, the goal for this buildout is to drive millions of people out of their livelihood. But maybe a rogue AI will go nuts before then and become even more catastrophic.
So people are looking around, seeing their physical space being worsened in order to make their digital lives worse, with the possibility of much more misery to come. No kidding they aren't a fan.
It's interesting that the companies building these haven't even tried to smooth over the public relations until recently. I get it, this is all terribly exciting for VCs and a subset of techies, but their inability to even comprehend the objections shows what an extreme bubble they are in. The rest of the country gets a vote, and snidely dismissing everyone else as a knee jerk NIMBY, or Chinese shill, or illogical moron isn't going to convince anyone.