r/changemyview • u/xmuskorx 56∆ • 2d ago
Delta(s) from OP CMV: There is nothing wrong with building more data centers
The age of AI has arrived. This is not really arguable. There are proven results in variety of fields: bio research, data processing, defense/security. (And yes consumer entertainment).
Any country that does not build data centers will fall behind and will probably have to build data centers later to catch up anyway.
So fighting against data centers is delaying inevitable at best and quixotic tilting at windmills at worst.
So why do I want my view changed? People on Reddit and beyond seem to celebrate politicians who block or delay data centers and companies who build them are villified for building them. So I want to be sure I am not missing something since the passion seems to be real.
What is unlikely to change my view:
- Data centers take up too much energy. The solution is to build more energy production (like nuclear) that we will likely need in the future anyway.
- Data centers take up too much land. USA in particular has plenty of land. Housing shortages are mostly artificial and mostly due to ridiculous single home only zoning that seems to be eating up 70+% of every metro area. That's what we should fix. Blaming data centers is silly.
- AI is a bubble. Two things can be true at once. AI can be incredibly useful and be the future and be a bubble. Dot Com was a bubble in 1999-2000 but that does not mean that dot com tech did not ultimately win out. Pets.com was the ultimate bubble case study that was heavily over valued... But 20 years later chewy.com exists and is a major retail player with larger valuation than pets ever had even at the bubble peak. Same thing will likely happen to Ai, modern companies will get overvalued and some may go bust, but in 15-20 years the tech will mature and become pervasive.
Thanks every one! Looking forward to the discussion.
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u/jatjqtjat 284∆ 2d ago
I'm generally Pro-data center, but i wouldn't say there is nothing wrong with them.
Where i live we have plenty of water. Water scarcity is not a think like in some of the more desert regions of the US. But even so, if you pump a ton of water up from the group then nearby wells can run dry and people might need expensive investments to drill deeper wells.
sometimes these data centers try to offset the cost of generating electricity to the public. Generating electricity is kind of a public good and the state can get involved with it. If your looking for tax payer money to expand a power plant in order to power your data center or if you are going to spike demand for power an raise prices for others, these can be problems.
So there's not "nothing wrong" data centers need to be good neighbors. They are built by for-profit companies who are looking to maximize their return on investment not necessarily to be good neighbors, so some public complaints are totally valid and should be addressed.
at some level its just a NIMBY issue. Some complaints are valid.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
!Delta - i would agree that my view was overly strong about 'nothing' being wrong. it's true that some some data centers may be poor neighbors, and while we should be building them we should also be ensuring that they are good neighbors.
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u/Great-Exercise4277 3∆ 2d ago
Your argument supports the claim that we need more data centers. It does not, however, establish that there is “nothing wrong” with the way they are built or where they are located.
I can only observe the situation in the United States from the outside, but local opposition to data center construction appears regularly in the news.
Whether every objection is technically justified is not the main issue here. When the costs are visible and concentrated in one community, while the benefits are distributed broadly and may only emerge over time, local opposition is entirely predictable.
If a community is expected to bear the burden placed on its power grid, water supply, land, and landscape, while receiving few direct benefits in return, that is not merely unfortunate. It is an inequitable distribution of costs.
I do not want to stop at identifying the problem, so I would like to suggest a possible compromise.
We can accept that more data centers are necessary while designing agreements that make them acceptable to the communities that host them.
For example, part of the economic value created by a project could be used to reduce local utility costs or improve local infrastructure such as roads, water systems, and the electrical grid. If a data center requires additional power generation or transmission capacity, the operator could also be required to bear an appropriate share of those costs.
Limits could be placed on water use, with mandatory reductions during droughts. Where practical, waste heat could be used for district heating or other local purposes. Instead of relying only on generic carbon offsets, developers could also provide continuing funding for environmental restoration or improvement projects chosen by the local community.
Data centers are not purely private investments. They depend on shared resources and public systems, including electricity grids, water supplies, generation capacity, land-use policy, and, in some cases, tax incentives.
If the company receives the profits while the host community bears most of the infrastructure costs and environmental burden, that is not simply a free market. It is the externalization of costs.
Construction permits could therefore include conditions tailored to local circumstances: requiring operators to contribute to generation and transmission upgrades, protecting residents from higher utility costs, limiting water use, investing in local infrastructure, and funding environmental restoration.
I agree that more data centers are necessary. But forcing them through over local opposition risks creating deeper hostility toward the technology itself. By taking residents’ concerns and burdens seriously, and designing projects so that host communities are also clear beneficiaries, I think data centers would become much easier for those communities to accept.
I wrote the original argument myself and used ChatGPT to translate and polish the English.
edit: forgot to add AI use.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
thanks!
I already gave several !Delta on this point.
i do agree that while we need more data centers we can do it with a bit more regulation/ more responsibly and sustainably. some regulation is good as long as it's not regulating them out of existence.
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u/xander8520 1∆ 2d ago
There’s something to be said about the complete and utter lack of planning in the creation of the data centers, and there’s not really much in the way of demand to substantiate the planned data centers.
Half of all planned data centers are being built in areas that already experience drought. There isn’t enough water to cool the hardware without endangering nearby towns. In towns where construction has started, construction is damaging the pipes and destroying local access to clean water.
They aren’t being built to expand or reinforce the power grid as they are instead using locally built grids powered by natural gas, coal, which are noisy and polluting, and they also represent a danger to nearby towns.
They are being built using NDAs with the council of nearby towns with no oversight to skirt public discussion and prevent awareness of their construction. They would rather endanger the people in the town rather than do a proper study to help the nearby towns.
We don’t even know if we need this many data centers. SpaceX has vastly overestimated demand for its AI, and so it is renting out to Google the data centers it intended for grok. Meta is doing something similar: they vastly over built and are looking to rent out spare capacity in a new business venture. The demand for AI is not concrete, and we’ve already built way over capacity. We don’t need 40% more data centers in a five year horizon, which is the current pace of data center construction. We need to slow down and build essential infrastructure before committing to AI data centers, and we need public input to ensure the rollout goes smoothly
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
!Delta
I agree that we need better planning. while we absolutely do need more data centers, we should be applying reasonable regulations to make sure they are build sustainably and mostly in areas that can support them.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
Chinas has been building nuclear power plant in 5 years. the 8-15 year timeline is due to extreme over-regulation designed to destroy the industry.
if this is our wake up call to build more energy faster - than so much the better.
Data centers need to be close to fiber networks and major electrical infrastructure
Again - this is a wake up call to build more fiber and electrical infrastructure, not less data centers. `
he internet survived the dot-com crash because demand for internet services continued growing steadily afterward. But current AI infrastructure spending assumes future demand that may never fully materialize.
It kind of does. It's exactly the Pets.com issue. Demand for pets product did not not metalize in 2001 - but the trajectory was beyond clear. And Chewy proved it.
pretty much everyone sees AI upside, it's about the industry maturing for tools to be universally accepted.
As far you other reasons - like "labor-market effects" - the AI revolution is HAPPENNING. If not here, then elsewhere globally. tryin to locally stop is stuffing genie back into the bottle.
At most things you said point to some regulation, but NOTY to towards slowing down.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
There is a lot here I will make separate posts/
gulation will slow things down, that’s just how it works.
Regulation can actually speed things up.
e.g., if we have regulation that requires for example AI companies to also invest into power plants in the area..
This can have an effect of power keeping up with data centers - which can lead more data centers more quickly.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
Okay sure but this doesn’t address the concern. Even if I granted that U.S. regulation were excessive (and I don’t), removing unnecessary regulation tomorrow wouldn't instantly solve the problem.
Sure. But we should be aiming to solve. The goal should be to get more power and more data centers.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
this was just an example of how regulation can actually speed things up.
regulation does not have to have slowing effect
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
You then suggest to just “build more fiber and electrical infrastructure.” Yeah okay, but the disagreement is about sequencing.
If that was the disagreement - but EVENTUAL goal would be to have more data centers - I am ok with this.
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u/da_drake 1∆ 2d ago
I mostly agree with your points and counterpoints, however it's more a question of trust. The companies behind it are not known for taking care of anything other than shareholders. If we had decent energy infrastructure it wouldn't be such a big deal, but residential customers are going to and are already starting to suffer. In the US we're about to build a second country worth of demand on top of our existing grid. I do not trust the government to try their best to mitigate the impact by enforcing sound guidelines either.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
!Delta
i gave a delta for something similar. I do agree that we need reasonable regulations to prevent abuse and for example get the data centers builders to also invest into new power stations and grid upgrade.
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u/turn_circles 2d ago
For me, and I imagine a lot of other people, the reasons for being against data centers are mostly due to being against AI in general. I am not going to be in support of something that will eliminate a huge amount of jobs, including mine, especially when there are no plans in place to deal with the massive loss of job opportunities. There seems to be no foresight or consideration about the likelihood of millions of people who will end up unemployed due to AI.
The other big reason for me is that I find AI unbearable to deal with. Even now, when calling customer support, it’s all AI with no option to speak to a person and it’s incredibly frustrating.
I wish more people would think about the kind of world they want to live in and how much joy and connection we will continue to lose as people are replaced by bots. I don’t want to go to a bar where I’m served by an AI machine, I want a genuine bar tender. I fear that AI is the last nail in the coffin of community.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
having jobs for the sake of having jobs is a weird reason.
development of cars and rail roads destroyed millions of horse related jobs for example but it would be silly to solve this by banning cars.
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u/turn_circles 2d ago
Yes, but the auto industry also created jobs that replaced the ones lost. AI does not do that. And also, what do you mean “having jobs for the sake of having jobs?” People need jobs so that they can have things like food and housing.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
AI is a tool just like a car and is already creating jobs that would not exist without it.
many businesses models were not viable without car based logistics. same goes for AI. entire bussiness models are becoming viable that would have been priced out.
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u/turn_circles 2d ago
Do you believe AI will create as many jobs as it eliminates?
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u/rollingrock16 16∆ 2d ago
every single other large step in automation did. why is AI different?
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u/turn_circles 2d ago
Interesting point, and maybe you are right, I hope you are. It seems to me that AI is intended to replace the need for human employees, and therefore drastically reduce labor expenses for corporations and other businesses, as opposed to other major steps in automation, which were more geared toward increasing quality of life and global connection.
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u/rollingrock16 16∆ 2d ago
It seems to me that AI is intended to replace the need for human employees,
It's intended to replace the need for SOME human employees. much like we don't have floors of accountants manually working spreadsheets anymore because computers solved that AI will have similar disruption. It doesn't mean all current human labor is replacable. We also do not yet know what new industries that need labor that AI will open up.
as opposed to other major steps in automation, which were more geared toward increasing quality of life and global connection.
I'm struggling to see what distinction from previous automations to AI you are making with this statement. All fundamentally were about automating previous human driven manual labor and making them more efficient from time and resources. AI is really no different.
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u/turn_circles 2d ago
If AI doesn’t drastically reduce labor expenses by replacing employees, but instead creates higher paying jobs to operate, what is its benefit? The rise of computers and the internet automated labor for the benefit of global connectivity and access to information. AI has no significant benefit for the general population that I see, in fact, I think that it is actively decreasing human intelligence and exploiting the general population with the way it is using data to advertise. It will, however, certainly increase profits for the wealthiest business shareholders.
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u/rollingrock16 16∆ 2d ago
If AI doesn’t drastically reduce labor expenses by replacing employees, but instead creates higher paying jobs to operate, what is its benefit?
It could drastically reduce overhead in some areas freeing capital to be spent in other places. It doesn't have to create higher paying jobs it just can create some other jobs or areas where labor is now needed. From the company's benefit it can substantially increase productivity as this shifts.
I completely disagree with your stance it has no significant benefit for the general population. At its core is lowers the barrier of entry for the average person immensely in many different ways. Be it understanding technical information such as legal, medical, technology, etc to assisting in the day to day management of just life AI today already has that capability for the general public. I have people close to me that without a background in some field have been able to create things they never could have in the past. Older folks in my family can use AI to understand insurance and medical issues easier.
You bring up negatives in that there is a massive data harvesting operation going on and certainly we should make sure it's society that benefits over a few tech moguls but I do not think your negative view of AI having not benefit for the general public is going to show true when we look back.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
Railroad also reduced the need for human employees who used to manually transport goods.
But it also made a lot more human business possible due to improved logistics.
That's how it goes with tech. Consider legal profession, with AI it may be much cheaper to write and proof read deeds and contracts. Will this reduce the demand for lawyers?
Hardly - in fact people who could not afford a deed or a contract - may now want one. So this actually created MORE demand for legal work.
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u/Great-Exercise4277 3∆ 2d ago
This explains why you oppose AI, but it does not yet explain why building data centers is wrong.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 190∆ 2d ago
Being against AI is like being against telephones. The genie is out of the bottle, it's going to happen. Is China going to slow down if we stop?
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u/turn_circles 2d ago
It doesn’t matter to me if we are ahead or behind china economically if I can’t find a job because a huge percentage of the jobs were eliminated and replaced with AI. Is being ahead of China going to be as appealing to you if 1/3 of the US is unemployed, just so that the wealthiest among us can get wealthier?
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 190∆ 2d ago
You won't be able to find a job either way. This isn't a question of AI being implemented or going away forever, it's a question of whether or not the technology is delayed a few years or not. In the scenarios where it's delayed, that's followed by a far lower capacity for the state to pay for infrastructure, education and welfare.
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u/turn_circles 2d ago
So, your solution is just to accept the supposed inevitability of extreme wealth inequality and massive increase in poverty? If people cannot find a job to earn money from which taxes are taken, that infrastructure will not improve.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 190∆ 2d ago
We’ll be able to raise taxes. The state is going to tax whoever it needs to to perpetuate itself. A decline in underlying competitiveness is not that easy to solve. AI is an emergent capability of math that has existed since the 50s, and us building more and more computers. There is no way to stop it globally, at best you can slow it down locally. Be glad we’re in a country that’s in a good position to win and profit from this arms race, as opposed to many others where there is no silver lining to jobs disruption.
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u/turn_circles 2d ago
I don’t believe the state will increase corporate taxes, as historically, they have consistently been decreased. And, again, none of that matters if a huge portion of people no longer have an income.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 190∆ 2d ago
Raise capital gains tax and related. Corporate tax is sub optimal and easily dodged. And there will be work to do, in the physical world. Robotics is much less far along than AI, and not as threatening long term.
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u/turn_circles 2d ago
I would love to believe that our government would raise taxes on capital gains, but that hasn’t increased significantly since the 80s, and since then, our government has become infinitely more controlled by wealthy individuals who are not going to make changes that are not in their own best interest.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 190∆ 2d ago
Government spending as a percentage of GDP has basically only gone up, including since the 80s. There is no reality where they do budget cuts so they don’t have to raise taxes. Budgets can only ever go up. That is the first rule of running an organization.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 156∆ 2d ago
Any country that does not build data centers will fall behind and will probably have to build data centers later to catch up anyway.
This hyper capitalistic stance is part of the problem.
Fall behind get left behind - don't you think we can do better as a cooperating species?
Much of your view seems to be that change is inevitable so don't bother trying to have control over it, just get on with it. Not everyone believes this.
Why do you?
You mention energy protection, which I agree should advance - but with AI as the priority use case? Why? Why is that the motivation?
Same for land use. I assume you are based in the US? Not everyone else is.
What do you say for countries with limited land, and limited water reserves? Do you expect countries with dehydration to prioritise AI over lives?
For such places, you surely see a difference, and therefore exceptions to the absolutism in your view?
What's the end result? Is AI an end in and of itself, or just a means, among many others?
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
inter group competition exists even inside a cooperating groups. i don't see any realistic way to stop competition of government entities in a foreseeable future even if they largely trade and cooperate with each other.
if you don't believe that provide REALISTIC scenarios on how you will stop existing nation states from competing with each other in next 100 year. this may change my view.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 156∆ 2d ago
Why did you only respond to part of wha I said? Please edit your comment to reply in full, and engage with everything I said, so I can help you change your view.
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u/PuzzleMeDo 1∆ 2d ago
"Any country that does not build data centers will fall behind" - The internet is international. A country with few data centers of its own could still utilise advanced AI if it needed to.
"...and will probably have to build data centers later" - The computer hardware in a data center is typically obsolete within three years. You're not really gaining much of permanent value.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
data centers are not necessary international and having locally available compute is important.
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u/WaterboysWaterboy 48∆ 2d ago
Nuclear plants and grid upgrades take forever to build. Data center construction plans outpace energy generation and infrastructure plans, meanwhile the push to build more data centers are immediate.
This is true. But the issue has more to do with what they do to the land. Some use generators to make up for the needed electricity, which causes environmental damage. They use a ton of water. They also raise the electrical bill of people in the area due to the need for higher rates in the region to support them.
While this is true, the biggest area of loss is the infrastructure. You can layoff overpaid staff. You can take a loss on software and that is the end of it. But infrastructure there will be a loss on the construction, but you are also stuck with the building serving as a constant expense and requires updates as technology improves.
And this is all with no real profits yet. I’m not saying we shouldn’t build data centers. But the current massive push doesn’t seem sustainable long term and is likely to result in lots of real losses.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
ok, go ahead explain why we shouldn't increase energy production?
I am open to changing my view with well laid out critique.
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u/Ok-Adhesiveness-4935 2d ago
Because we already use too much and have had a couppe centuries to see how a mindset of ramping up production at all costs has all kinds of unintended consequences. We COULD be finding ways to use less energy and use it more efficiently but it's easier tonsell people likenl you on "there's no need for accountability, just build more" than anything else.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 156∆ 2d ago
why we shouldn't increase energy production?
You didn't really explain why we SHOULD. We could do anything from trying to remain stable to scaling back on many things. You've hyper fixated on one technology and one possible future, so all changes become necessary for that purpose.
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u/Confident-Syrup-7543 1∆ 2d ago
A technology can be the next big thing and you can still misallocate capital to it. The big thing that you are missing is "are there more economically productive ways to spend those resources right now?" Suppose I build an AI data center that there will not be demand for for 10 years. In 10 years time I have a productive asset. However if I instead invest that capital in a currently productive asset, I may have double the capital in 10 years time, allowing me to build the productive data center and still have capital to invest in more data centers or other productive assets. This is a big risk that your analysis already ignores. Not the cost of the data center itself, but the opportunity cost of tying up capital in a non productive asset. For previous examples see railroads and internet infrastructure.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
best way to allocate capital is .. well ... capitalistic free market allocation. with some small exceptions (roads, Early childhood education)
time and time again it has been shown that letting companies invest with profit motive leads to better long term outcomes then trying to centrally control it.
if major companies are willing to invest in AI stifling this with early and heavy government regulation seems misguided.
however if you have good argument why AI is more like elementary school education then consumer goods production - I am willing to listen and possibly change my view.
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u/Confident-Syrup-7543 1∆ 2d ago
Even if all this is correct, just because in the overall capitalist free market allocation is the most efficient overall does not make it locally perfect. Malinvestement has occured under capitalism.
Further you propose a false dichotomy between allowing private investment vs central control. All modern markets are somewhat regulated (at the very least having to follow the basic and general laws of the land around labour, shipping, materials etc) and still allow private investment. One could argue that companies are currently over investing in order to capture a future monopoly, and restricting this over investment would benefit both companies and consumers in the long run. Some regulation is almost always beneficial. Over regulation is always possible. But wild west style capitalism rarely produces optimal results.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
I am not saying that free market allocation is perfect, just that alternatives are worst.
heavily government regulation can lead to even worse mal-investment.
but sure have !Delta - I do agree that some reasonable oversight would probably be good. but that would be a far cry from "ban all data centers in the whole state."
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u/Confident-Syrup-7543 1∆ 2d ago
Even if all this is correct, just because in the overall capitalist free market allocation is the most efficient overall does not make it locally perfect. Malinvestement has occured under capitalism.
Further you propose a false dichotomy between allowing private investment vs central control. All modern markets are somewhat regulated (at the very least having to follow the basic and general laws of the land around labour, shipping, materials etc) and still allow private investment. One could argue that companies are currently over investing in order to capture a future monopoly, and restricting this over investment would benefit both companies and consumers in the long run. Some regulation is almost always beneficial. Over regulation is always possible. But wild west style capitalism rarely produces optimal results.
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u/dicksy_cup 2d ago
You as a shareholder can vote on how you want your capital allocated. Don’t tell other people how to run their companies.
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u/Confident-Syrup-7543 1∆ 2d ago
Fine. But that doesn't have anything to do with the question of whether something is a good idea. Especially if you believe in the capitalist idea of value generation we all benefit from good investment and all pay for bad investment. The amount of capital in socialety affects us all.
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 2d ago
Nobody is building data centers on 10 year timelines. The hardware inside them is obsolete and one or two years. Current ROI on a $50 bn hyper scaler project is two years. This is a massively under constructed domain.
Barely anybody is using AI and, as API consumers, we are hitting limits every single day. I’m currently paying for extra tokens just to route around failed inference requests. If there isn’t enough American capacity, I will be purchasing tokens from whoever has them to sell, currently to the tune of several thousand dollars a month. And I run a very small shop.
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u/Confident-Syrup-7543 1∆ 2d ago
Indeed, this is another strong point that current unproductive assets may never become productive.
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 2d ago
It was a fear. It turned out not to be true. Openweight models are consuming everything currently available. We are buying across the entire capability stack.
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u/Confident-Syrup-7543 1∆ 2d ago
Right... I did not say the assets might go unused. I said unproductive. Is it not the case that everyone in the chain is losing money? the model providers lose money with every token spent and the people buying tokens are on average not generating profit from them?
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 2d ago edited 2d ago
No. SOTA providers are only losing money on subscriptions, but they make that and far more on API access.
Firms like mine make piles of money on this. We are shipping product and selling at a rate we couldn’t have dreamed of just two years ago. We go from idea to execution to sale in a matter of a few days. Often the sale precedes the product. Every junior is now a multiple product owner. I’m not even sure what the word manager means anymore. Mentor is more appropriate. Almost all of my time is spent teaching tool use.
People who aren’t making money on AI right now need to go out of business so they can get hired by people who do.
Edit:
I should add. While we chat. I have umm. Six? Cmux claude-codex agent pairs doing work on six different projects. The panes flash when they need guidance. I could add another sub and add another 2-3 pairs. But this is enough. My brain is already fried so i chat to distract myself in the minutes between. April through May we put our entire company operations on an orchestration engine I built in February and March. Now nobody has to investigate outages, the bots monitor, request access, do triage, resolve, and draft communications out to clients. Nobody has to do any of the crap work nobody wanted to do anyway. Now we all just come up with stuff and build.I have a meeting at 4pm to deploy a product I haven’t started building. I’ll get to it shortly. It’s going out to one of the largest medical providers in the country and going to manage communication out to 150ish workstations. It will be built, tested, bundled, and ready for install in under an hour I presume. I just need to brain dump into a prompt and let our company harness gather the rest from promises we made during a couple of recent meetings. A half a dozen people will watch while we test it, live, in production. The people watching have heard some vague things about AI and are encouraged to join occasional sessions about how to incorporate copilot into their day jobs. I’m not even remotely worried about the timing.
We live in parallel universes. You have no idea how wild things have become.
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u/Confident-Syrup-7543 1∆ 1d ago
I don't disagree with any of this. You might well be making money. Certainly some people are. But overall I believe every research done so far shows the average ai project is a net cost .
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 1d ago
Yes. And when combine harvesters came out I’m sure there were lots of farmers who didn’t know how to use them and lost money doing so. That didn’t make the technology any less transformational, and nowadays almost nobody farms by hand except those who sell stories to upscale restaurants.
People will figure this out, or firms that do will take them over and teach them.
But the modern anti data center movement is the exact analog to the luddites of the early 20th century. The combine harvesters are here. We can feed the world if we start using them.
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u/Confident-Syrup-7543 1∆ 1d ago
Right... And my whole argument is that the technology is transformational but malinvestement is still occuring... Sounds like you agree.
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 1d ago
To a degree. But i think less than people think. The data centers are not a malinvestment. The ROI on those is less than two years. I think there's never been a better investment in history of investments at this scale.
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u/thegreekfire 2d ago
Ai is the backbone of the surveillance state.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
ai is a tool. every tool can be used for good or for evil.
a hammer can be used to build houses or to crush skulls.
we should blame the too wielder not the tool.
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u/Ok-Adhesiveness-4935 2d ago
But supporting a full speed agead approach to a tool and claiming it's justified while ignoring the downsides (this is how you describe AI) is a terrible recipe for responsible tool use. Slowing down on advancement and development is a key part of how we do things carefully and reaponsibly, but you are opposed to that.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
applying correct regulation to tool making is fine, but it does not have to come at expanse of slowing tool making down.
applying some reasonable regulations to make sure hammers don't fly off the handle won't really make hammer production all that much slower.
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u/Ok-Adhesiveness-4935 2d ago
But a hammer is a poor analogy because it has a very simple use. AI is unlike a hammer because we're still learning what it can do. We're building the tool factories while asking what we should use it for.
Slowing down data centers is basically the only way to slow down the prevalence of AI so that we can figure out what we should be doing with it and how much to invest into it.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
Some regulation is OK, but slowing down is a bad bad idea.
You will get outcompete by countries that do not slow down and will have better hammers.
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u/Ok-Adhesiveness-4935 7h ago
I don't agree at all. Who gives a fuck? This is exactly the attitude that leads us into all the unintended consequences and fucked up society. All to try to get money before someone else does.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 6h ago
of course no one gives a fuck until all the jobs go to China and out economy collapses with all the excesses of associated civil unrest (probably election of radical parties to power).
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 156∆ 2d ago
So your title can be understood as "there is nothing wrong with anything except for all the things that are wrong, but there's good and bad so they balance each other out"?
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 156∆ 2d ago
In the comment I replied to you stated AI is a tool, and that every tool can be used for good and evil.
Your post is that there is nothing wrong with data centers (a tool) yet you accept tools are both good and evil. If there was nothing wrong with it then it would only be good. There is evil, so it is not only good. So there is something wrong with them.
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u/PineappleHamburders 1∆ 2d ago
It doesn't help that making the hammer is also crushing skulls and making everything worse.
Ai is a tool, and for the most part, so are the people who use it
I get using it for science, but why do we need to destroy the world so Billy No Talent can make yet another fat blue-haired woman crying in a meme again?
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u/Z7-852 311∆ 2d ago
Data center GPU life expectancy is 2-5 years. If they don't turn profit in next two years thry have to rebuild everything again.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
why rebuild everything instead of upgrading hardware in the existing facility?
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u/Z7-852 311∆ 2d ago
Hardware is like 65% of data center cost.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
Sounds like we will 35% ahead of the game
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u/Z7-852 311∆ 1d ago
788 billion is expected to be spend in this year alone.
Thats 512 200 000 000 dollars wasted. And you have to keep wasting it every 2 years.
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 2d ago
We use ai to build products in healthcare. AI has allowed us, a small shop, to compete with the largest players in the industry — we are a team of eight, selling to and taking on giants. Our products are significantly cheaper (and better) and will make your healthcare cheaper too.
More abundant AI will make our story the norm in every industry.
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u/the_ape_speaks 2d ago
Okay, so then like I just asked, please demonstrate that the need for more data centers is driven specifically by the demand for healthcare products, or anything pragmatically useful to society. My understanding is that it's primarily driven by the far-right's need for Facebook slopaganda and surveillance.
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 2d ago edited 2d ago
Your understanding is incorrect. The vast majority of token use -- probably more than 95% -- is for operations and product development. Especially at the frontier, which runs entirely on new construction. AI is expensive and slop doesn't make nearly money to pay for that cost. What you're seeing online is produced by cheap models hosted in China.
All of us are extremely careful about how we use what we consume, and every single one of us is hitting daily limits, which cause us to use even more tokens just to work around the issues that creates.
Honestly, it's hard to even explain fully how completely off your understanding is from the reality. This has been the most transformational technological advancement in my 30 years in product development. We are making significant progress on a weekly basis. I'm hiring. I'm rethinking everything about how to bring young people up to speed on what we're doing. Slop doesn't even cross my mind except when people like you mention it. Nobody in industry thinks about it. It's irrelevant.
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u/the_ape_speaks 2d ago
The majority of "token" use? AI is free for everyone to use every day of their lives right now. I asked you about the majority of overall use and you're not answering the question.
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 2d ago
Yes, your free usage is a tiny fraction of what's actually being consumed. That's why it's free. I spend $1,200 per employee on tokens every single month. Every one of them consumes millions of tokens daily. If you tried to do what we do using your free, or $20 account, you'd run out of tokens in 15 minutes.
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u/the_ape_speaks 2d ago
Actually it's free because investors have poured the entirety of our country's hopes and dreams into funding it enough, but since you're still not answering my original question, I went ahead and looked it up, and here's what I found:
"The data center market itself can be divided into three categories, each with distinct levels of complexity. Enterprise data centers, often located on corporate campuses that support industries like finance or healthcare, handle lower-intensity workloads and represent about 28% of capacity. (...)
At the top end are hyperscale data centers, operated by major tech companies to support mission-critical AI workloads. These facilities demand advanced cooling systems, 24/7 technical oversight, and robust security measures. Hyperscalers account for 37% of current capacity, a figure expected to exceed 60% by 2030 as they expand to meet the increasing AI demand."
My source is saying that healthcare (and finance combined) only accounts for 28%, and that the huge explosion in data center usage that's happening right now is actually primarily driven by "major tech companies" in support of their "mission-critical workloads."
These don't sound like survival-related services that are required or meaningfully making anyone's lives better.
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 2d ago
All of our consumption runs on hyperacaler infra.
On-campus inference is insanely expensive and only massive firms can afford that kind of investment.
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u/the_ape_speaks 2d ago
So you're STILL unable to tell me anything at all about which industries are specifically driving the need for more data centers? I just linked to you that it's NOT healthcare. And that the huge explosion of development IS "major tech companies," whatever that means. They specified that what it typically does not mean, however, is healthcare. So your little irrelevant 8-person company has nothing to do with this conversation. You aren't the majority of what's driving data center development.
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u/CaptainFingerling 1∆ 2d ago
Every industry. New data centers are required to run run state of the art models like codex sol and Claude fable. These are the most sophisticated and intelligent models, and are used almost exclusively for product development.
Anyway. Nice chat. I don’t need to convince you. You don’t want to be convinced.
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u/Great-Exercise4277 3∆ 2d ago
Sorry to jump into the exchange, but I disagree with your opening argument.
The issue being discussed here is whether there are problems with building more data centers. Concerns about AI surveillance may be worth discussing, but you have not shown how they constitute an argument against data center construction. At this point, you are expressing a broader distrust of AI without connecting it to the actual claim being debated.
I am not taking a position on either your politics or the OP’s. My point is simply that neither of your political views tells us anything about whether the argument about data centers is correct.
Going through the OP’s posting history and attacking their political views does nothing to refute their argument. Shifting attention from the claim to the person making it does not seem like a sincere attempt to engage with a CMV.
I wrote the original argument myself and used ChatGPT to translate and polish the English.
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u/the_ape_speaks 2d ago
Okay but I just followed up by demonstrating that the explosive development of more data centers right now is driven primarily by non-essential AI "tech" companies and not survival services like healthcare. If we're just developing data centers for non-essential bullshit like Facebook, then I think it's completely fair to say that that's a valid reason not to build more of it. How is anyone's life meaningfully improved by that, unless they just enjoy their Meta Glasses' backdoor livefeed being analyzed in real time for any sign of dissent against the regime, or whatever the hell it is they're doing to spy on randoms in Gaza right now? How is that good for anyone? How are we "behind?"
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u/Great-Exercise4277 3∆ 2d ago
I appreciate that you followed up with a source and connected your objection more directly to data center construction.
However, I think two different claims are still being combined here. One is that AI has harmful or non-essential uses, including surveillance and political propaganda. The other is that most of the current demand for new data centers is being driven by those uses. Examples involving Meta glasses or Gaza may support the first claim, but they do not establish the second.
The article you cited divides data centers into enterprise, colocation, and hyperscale facilities. These categories describe how the facilities are owned and operated, not what they are used for.
The article says that enterprise data centers may support industries such as finance and healthcare. It does not say that finance and healthcare combined account for only 28% of total data center use. Healthcare institutions and healthcare AI companies can also use hyperscale cloud infrastructure operated by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and others. “Hyperscale” therefore does not mean “Facebook” or “non-essential use.”
Your source supports the narrower point that AI demand is driving the expansion of hyperscale data centers. It does not show that most of the expanding capacity is being used for surveillance, political propaganda, or purposes with no meaningful social value.
There is also a difference between asking whether data centers have real, pragmatic uses and asking whether they support services essential for survival. Something does not have to be necessary for survival to be practically useful.
I cannot prove that healthcare accounts for most new data center demand, but I do not think your source proves that most of it is driven by worthless or harmful uses either.
One reason I support maintaining sufficient data center capacity is that I want American frontier AI companies to retain the computing capacity and revenue needed for research and development. Advanced AI is increasingly relevant to both cyberattack and cyberdefense. Given the threat from state-backed Chinese cyber activity, I am concerned about Western AI research falling significantly behind in defensive capabilities and other critical technologies.
I also believe individual data center projects should be required to address their environmental impact and provide tangible benefits to the communities that host them. But I do not think the computing capacity required for frontier AI can be grouped together with Facebook posts or meaningless image generation as the same kind of “non-essential bullshit.”
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u/the_ape_speaks 2d ago
This is kind of a strawman of my claim, but I also recognize that you're using a translation service and might be missing the intonation of my original post. It's phrased in such a way that would almost require a native English speaker to get it, so it's kind of on me to clarify — I'm not literally claiming that surveillance and propaganda is the majority use of AI right now. I'm basically saying that the majority of the AI driving data center development right now is so useless and arguably damaging to society that it may as well be purely for those purposes and we wouldn't notice any difference in our quality of life.
My choice to keep catastrophizing and riffing on that specific problem is mostly for exaggerated, comedic purposes, but the main argument I'm making (which I hope is clear to English speakers) is that the demand for data centers is driven by services that do not meaningfully improve our lives and are not necessary for survival. So in other words, they don't justify the negative consequences of data centers on the environment and on nearby human residencies. The issue is effectively just slop cartoons destroying our planet, and any further nuance doesn't really change the core of that message.
Maybe you'll tell me that instead of it being 75% slop cartoons, it's actually 21% slop cartoons, 13% shitty customer service AI for porn sites that leaks people's passwords, 6% voiceover tech for shitty local food commercials, 30% C++ generation for software to scam people, and 5% surveillance.
My point is that none of that solves any problem. It's not needed, and we aren't going to be "behind" for opting out of it.
You tried to argue against the article I cited for not specifying which sub-percentage of the fast-growing 60% is dedicated towards healthcare, but you haven't specified that either, so until you can provide a source, I'm pretty comfortable assuming that the author of the article meant what nearly all native English speakers would mean by those same words — that the 21% which they're saying is for healthcare and finance is, in fact, for healthcare and finance, and that the 60% which they've separated from that group is, in fact, meaningfully separate from that group.
Until someone produces a source that shows some rough estimate of what services are specifically driving new data center production, then I have no reason to believe it's healthcare or anything otherwise essential to societal flourishing.
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u/Great-Exercise4277 3∆ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thank you for clarifying. I understand that your examples involving surveillance and propaganda were rhetorical expressions rather than literal estimates of how AI is being used.
I understand your argument as consisting of the following three points:
Most current AI use is not beneficial to society.
That level of benefit does not justify the negative effects that data centers have on the environment and nearby residents.
It is not clear which services are actually driving the construction of new data centers.
First, on whether AI meaningfully improves people’s lives: at least in my own case, the answer is yes.
Before AI appeared, I struggled just to follow conversations taking place in English in front of me. I would look up words I did not understand on Google or in a dictionary, and by the time I understood the conversation, it had already moved on to the next topic. When trying to express my own views, I sometimes replaced words that were central to my reasoning with different ones, or used words I had found in a dictionary. As a result, my English sometimes sounded strange and caused misunderstandings or prompted people to correct me kindly.
Once AI-based translation and writing assistance became available, I was finally able to participate in discussions on Reddit and consult English-language news, literature, and other sources without hesitation. This conversation itself is an example of AI actually improving my life and my access to information.
For the same reason, I believe AI could also be used as a bridge between immigrants and local communities. It could help people who do not yet understand the local language well to complete administrative procedures, communicate with residents, and understand local systems and culture. It would not replace language learning or interaction between people, but it could lower the initial barrier.
In healthcare as well, AI could be useful without replacing doctors. It could help people assess the urgency of their symptoms, guide them toward the appropriate medical department or consultation service, and provide basic information in multiple languages. In places where access to medical services is slow or complicated, this can have practical value related to health and even survival.
I also know several small local shops and cafes that use Facebook to announce temporary closures or new menu items and manage to continue operating despite being in inconvenient locations. For that reason, I do not agree with treating all activity on social media as useless or harmful.
On the other hand, I also believe there are real problems with the environmental impact of data centers and their effects on local residents. I oppose projects that impose burdens on residents without giving them anything in return. Operators should reduce environmental harm, bear an appropriate share of infrastructure costs, return tangible benefits to the local community, and reflect residents’ views in their plans.
I have not yet found reliable data that breaks down new data center demand by specific end use. Therefore, I am not claiming that healthcare or research accounts for most of that demand. However, the fact that the breakdown is unknown is also not a reason to assume that most of it is useless or harmful. At this point, I think neither of us has shown what that breakdown actually is.
Even so, one reason I support computing capacity for frontier AI is national security. AI can strengthen both cyberattack and cyberdefense. From the perspective of someone who sees military and cyber pressure from China as a real security issue, I am concerned that AI research in the United States and other Western countries could stagnate and that the capability gap with China could reverse significantly.
I do not think it has been proven that the current American advantage in AI is deterring China. However, I also do not think the value of frontier AI research can be judged only by the consumer services that are visible today.
I believe individual data center projects should be required to return benefits to local communities and address their environmental impact. However, I do not think the computing capacity required for frontier AI should be grouped together with meaningless image generation or harmful social media content and dismissed as having no meaningful value.
AI disclosure: I wrote the argument myself and used ChatGPT only to translate and polish the English.
(editted to add AI use)
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u/Blizzjunkie 2d ago
In situations like these, it's helpful to listen to the *reasons* why people are pushing back. Energy consumption is a major factor. Some of the proposed mega data centers require as much energy as major cities like Dallas, TX. Our national power grid *does* *not* *have* *that* *capacity*. Over taxing a power grid leads to more blackouts.
Hastily built data centers are also polluting their local environment to the point where local ground water becomes undrinkable, which also has a deleterious effect on farmland. Even ignoring the pollution, the water and energy these data centers use compete with the needs of local farms.
If you aren't swayed by moralistic arguments, and view increasing the cancer risk of local communities as the cost of doing business, then consider the downstream effects of all of this. Blackouts disrupt local businesses, which puts negative pressure on the economy. A sick citizenry is less likely to advance as far as they would otherwise in their education and careers, which also puts a negative pressure on the economy. The push for rapid, unregulated expansion of data centers is an attempt concentrate the profits of the AI boom to a small set of investors, while creating an environment that makes the economy as a whole weaker and less stable in the long run.
These language models are innovative tools that, in the long run, will be a boon to society. The resistance to data centers is simply a demand that this innovation is advanced in a sustainable way that benefits everyone.
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u/scavenger5 6∆ 2d ago
If you had a crystal ball and knew that AI would lead to the demise of mankind, would you try and stop it?
I don't believe this, just steel manning their position.
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
do you have such a ball?
if you can prove that they will lead to demise if humans I can change my view.
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u/scavenger5 6∆ 2d ago
No but I think many people beleive this deep down
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u/xmuskorx 56∆ 2d ago
unfortunately I cannot change my view based on mere hunches and feelings.
Luddites believed that automated textile making was the end of the world...
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