Towns rebel against data center projects
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Ax, I am operating under the hypothetical that your question is Socratic.
Disclaimer- I don't, in fact, know exactly how to interpret it.
In any case, here is my reply-
Your question implies that everything in your list previous to data centers drew opposition that was not rational.
The following points stand out to me-
i. It is completely rational to oppose detention centers. Studies have been done showing that these detention centers share the same architecture as slave ships and concentration camps.
The harsh reality, also, is that they include rooms where firearms can be used to shoot people, and they contain incinerators.
They, also, burden the infrastructure of their localities with demands for water and electricity use without urban planning is advance.
ii. It is completely rational to oppose data centers. Please see my last point above.
Thanks for your thought provoking question.
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Data centers are great as long the developers pay their fair share of cost, the installations pay normal property tax, normal permit/impact fees, that there is sufficient water/power available to run the plant and/or the developer pays the full cost of the infrastructure improvement required.
Unfortunately, a lot of data center projects don’t meet those requirements.
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Yes, but they also do have toxic emissions making residents of surrounding areas ill.
It's my understanding at least, and I could be wrong, that there isn't enough water or electricity. Also, many parts of the country are experiencing draught. I don't disagree with you on this point.
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Link to video
I can't vouch for this. I didn't watch it. But is says data center emissions are making people ill. I've seen this point made by about 50 sources.
It is definitely rational to oppose them/ the way this is being done.
It's clearly top down and "screw the public" decision making.
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Texas Republicans have a data center problem
Data center construction is unpopular among locals, and a majority of the facilities are being proposed in red, rural counties. That puts Texas Republicans in a tough spot, as the White House has encouraged states to let the centers flourish.
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/05/07/texas-republicans-data-centers-rural/
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It's absolutely rational. Skyrocketing utility bills for starters. Degradation of environment. Competition for scarce resources like water. For what? So billionaires can impose their idea of utopia (read "$$$") on society, which will lead to job losses, more stupidity, invasion of privacy, ad nauseam.
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Festus is in the French part of Missouri. They are known for being contrary.
The first European settlement west of the Mississippi was in Ste. Genivieve, south of Festus. -
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Thankfully, our Governor (R) is coming out against them in NH. I wish she had also pointed out that nobody knows what they are doing, as another good reason for opposing them.
In an interview for "CloseUp," Ayotte declared herself no big fan of building massive data centers in New Hampshire.
Ayotte cites energy costs in opposing massive data centers in New Hampshire
Going back almost a century, if not further, stories of dystopian society were warning of the dangers that could come. What astounds me is that so many are embracing AI with open arms while allowing lunatic tech firms to call the shots without any government regulation being put in place. It really astounds me.
Then this...
Pity the poor AI datacenters facing ‘discrimination’
“I do guess a lot of the world gets covered in datacenters over time,” [Sam] Altman said. “But I don’t know because maybe we put them in space … I wish I had, like, more concrete answers for you, but like, we’re stumbling through this.”
Really!? Covering the earth with datacenters posing a possible existential threat to humanity is something we're willing to "stumble through" and accept guesses as good enough!?!? How did we ever get to this point?
At least one potential data center developer has hinted that data centers should have legal personhood status. Fine, then when the "intelligent" center(s) cause death (as they already have), bring them to court for murder and shut them down for depraved indifference.
"Tech bros" should not be calling the shots, whether they are billionaires or not.
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There's one being built in Utah (What is it with Utah?) that's bigger than x Walmarts (I can't remember what x is but, um, many). It's going to produce enough heat and emissions to kill all of the wildlife in the valley where it is being built.
If that’s the one I’m thinking of it’s actually the size of Manhattan!
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If that’s the one I’m thinking of it’s actually the size of Manhattan!
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Although I'm not big on game theory, the theorist behind it is interviewed in this piece from The Guardian. His thoughts on AI.
Some of it is absolutely frightening.
“The limits are the computer power and the data that you’re able to throw at it. And data is now a real constraint.” The whole of Wikipedia made up just 3% of GPT-3’s training data, he says. “Where do you get 10 times more data from next time around?” Data is becoming a valuable resource for that reason, and some organisations possess a potential trove of it. “The NHS is sitting on a huge amount of data about human beings. That’s the most valuable kind of data imaginable.” Private corporations would pay dearly for it, he says, “but I suspect that whoever signed off on such a deal would live to regret it”. He imagines a dystopian future scenario where “you’re only able to have access to the NHS if you agree to be wired up to wearable tech that monitors you on a regular basis … I think we are very quickly going to a world where the next generation of online influencers basically agree to have all of their life experiences, everything they say and do and see, harvested to provide data for AI.”
From an academic standpoint, Wooldridge resents the way Silicon Valley has come to dominate the AI field, both in terms of resources (“GPT-3 required 20,000-odd AI supercomputers to train; there are probably a couple of hundred in the whole of the University of Oxford”) and the public discourse. “We have seen the narrative stolen by Silicon Valley, which is promoting a version of AI [profit-driven, job-replacing and almost entirely focused on large language models] that certainly me and an awful lot of my colleagues have no interest in promoting or building,” he says. “It’s kind of depressing, as somebody who’s spent their career trying to build AI to make a better world and to improve people’s lives.”
If he could, though, he would slow the pace of AI development, “just so that we have more time to understand what’s going on”. It is, he points out, a classic “prisoner’s dilemma”, one of the foundational parables of game theory.
My reservations with game theory is--it seems to me--that the answer to most of the 'dilemmas' are to be found in the age old truism: The truth will set you free.
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Erin Brockovich gets involved:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/erin-brockovich-says-people-angry-165957745.html
For now she's not taking side (at least not overtly). She's just advocating for more transparency and crowd-sourcing information about plans for data centers.
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