This is the script of my national radio report last Monday discussing
communities pushing back on the construction of massive data centers.
As always there may have been minor wording variations from this
script as I presented the report live on air.
- - -
Yeah, so this is turning into quite a bipartisan issue. We've talked
many times about these horrible misinformation spewing large language
model generative AI systems with their search overviews, chatbots and
the rest being forced onto users whether they want them or not. And
polls suggest that it's overwhelmingly NOT. But of course these awful
AI systems need an instrumentality from which to spew forth, and
that's data centers.
You've probably seen photos and videos and heard stories about data
centers already since they've been functionally powering the Internet
and the Web for many, many years now. These are typically the enormous
buildings filled with seemingly endless rows of high racks of servers
that often appear to reach out to the vanishing point, thousands and
thousand of servers and often now massive multitudes of AI chips in
these centers. And these facilities -- especially the ones now being
built largely for AI -- use enormous amounts of electricity, and often
also enormous amounts of water for cooling.
And because of all the AI hype and desperation on the part of Big Tech
to try make AI pay off, their plans to build more data centers are
blooming all over the country, often in otherwise unspoiled rural
areas. And in many places now, local communities are pushing back on
these plans, sometimes quite successfully, and as I mentioned this
reaction is bipartisan.
These data centers can cause electric bills to skyrocket in their
areas for everybody. They can seriously impact water availability in
areas that already have water supply issues. In some cases now they're
also being powered by on-site noisy and polluting generators, often
multiple generators at individual facilities. These data centers are
already using a significant percentage of total U.S. power and are
predicted to be using far more if the AI building boom isn't
curtailed.
It's so insane now that Big Tech companies who used to be concerned
about being good neighbors now apparently sometimes seem to not care
at all. Imagine waking up one morning in a beautiful rural area and
finding fences going up just outside your backyard and bulldozers
plowing up acres of land. This has become a data center reality for
some people -- it's terrible. Some firms lust so much over AI that
they're now lobbying to have small nuclear power plants for their
facilities, which many observers are concerned would be obvious
targets for terrorism while further compounding the already critical
waste disposal problems already associated with this power source.
Big Tech usually dangles new jobs in front of communities when they
argue for these data centers, but usually the vast majority of those
jobs are only present during construction. Once those data centers are
built they usually only need a comparative handful of employees for
routine operations.
So more and more now, communities are fighting back against these data
center proposals. They're either delaying or blocking them outright.
It's a growing list of communities who have been organizing against
Big Tech wrecking these communities and lives in the name of AI that
again, hardly anybody (except billionaire big tech CEOs of course)
actually wants.
Politicians who support these projects against community opposition
can find themselves out of a job. For example, in a Virginia case late
last year, all town council members who supported a proposed Amazon
data center were voted out, and the newly elected council was then
composed entirely of opponents to the project with a mandate to block
it. There's an increasing sense from both political parties that Big
Tech has in some ways gone too far too fast, without due consideration
for negative impacts on local communities and their residents.
The push back against these data centers seems to be growing in
intensity, and while Big Tech has the big bucks for now, they may find
that they're not immune to angry residents who didn't ask for these
data centers, don't want them around, and will use their votes to help
make sure that their concerns aren't being ignored by their elected
representatives -- regardless of who they may be.
- - -
L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
[email protected] (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Signal: By request on need to know basis
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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