Do data centers only seem bad for the climate because we can see them?

I had similar thoughts[1] yesterday, and directionally agree with the author, but the national microwave analogy doesn't really work. Without a microwave, you'd still need to cook food, and microwave is probably actually more efficient than whatever it replaced. In other words, a national microwave would be a net negative on energy consumption, even if it's very visible. The same can't be said for datacenters, which if AI didn't exist, the energy wouldn't have been expended in the first place.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48914683