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> My conversations make me wonder if the technical content of data center deals is mostly beside the point. Closed-loop cooling systems? “I don’t believe them.” Paying millions in taxes? “I don’t believe them.” Creating a thousand jobs? “I don’t believe them.” I hear a reflexive skepticism of every claim.
It's not reflexive; it's evidenced. Regardless of what big tech promises, or potential mitigations, everyone knows what tech companies do now. It's not a generalised small-town lack of trust in big city folks, it's a direct response to decades of extractive behaviour by the same companies and people.
Essentially, I think there's a proximal reputational problem for AI companies, which the article calls out, but the ultimate problem is factual. It's not an education/communication/negotiation issue, because the real problem is the underlying reality. The wolf at the door being distrusted is because it's a wolf, not PR.
Well of course it's because the companies think they don't have to give a good deal. That they can get away with it.
One wonders if at this point they would have saved money not trying to fuck people over to get what they wanted. I hope so. The ideal world has companies doing things the honest way because it's honest, but I'd settle for them doing it that way because they're economically incentivized to do so.
These people, these communities, have been promised these same things before (or things adjacent to them) and have seen them not deliver, or even make their situation worse.
This is especially true of the tax income and job generation elements. The estimates provided as part of the deal are utterly divorced from reality- people know it and refuse to take part in the kayfabe that surrounds it.
The problem with conspiracy theories is not that they're based on a lack of trust, but that they're not rational. Sometimes a lack of trust is perfectly rational.
Cell towers don't actually fry your brains. Steam powered trains don't move so fast you suffocate. However, the big tech CEOs are absolutely going to take your data and use it against you. They are going to build data centers that harm your community. The fear here is reasonable and evidenced.
This isn't unique to AI, but AI is the current iteration of the same problem. Sometimes people distrust outsiders because they're star-bellied sneetches, but sometimes they distrust them because they're the British empire. You can't treat all distrust as unreasoning.
But a data center wouldn't help. It would raise electric prices and doesn't really employ people.
It's kind of like one industry that is in the area - there's a company that grows huge amounts of cranberries but its mostly automated. As far as I know only three people work on this huge site. They let the cranberries grow, flood the area when they're ready. The cranberries float to the top for robots to skim the surface and harvest them. The humans just move things around for the robots.
https://buildermuse.com/economy/every-state-offering-data-ce...
if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle
I believe you've met a Mike Garage:
https://x.com/japan_nobunaga/status/2083940637921943803
They don't always accept payment.
On the other hand, my city gave the local data centers big tax breaks to come here. In the last couple years my property taxes have increased significantly along with my electricity bill. It seems obvious that I’m subsidizing the local data center. There’s probably a couple dozen people who work there, so it’s not a realistic employment opportunity for me or anyone I know. I’m not anti-tech at all, but I wish the city hadn’t made the deal they did. Perhaps big tech could be less parasitic and contribute beneficially to society?
As long as there is no corruption involved, I do not see what is wrong with big tech choosing a project site where the cost is minimal.
If there are many poor rural cities which compete for data center deals, this seems to me like an efficient free market.
If public opinion swings, will this not influence politicians, and force big tech to provide better benefits in these deals?
> When I visited DC in February to start researching the brewing AI backlash, I found that the top two uniting issues were kids’ safety and data centers.1 These were very different concerns from those I hear in San Francisco—a city with no kids and no data centers
That kind of statement really bothers me. Is it measuring the magnetic fields or RF emissions? If it's RF, what frequency? If the EMF reader is picking up radio waves, I'm not exactly concerned. Visible light would be weird. X-rays would be very concerning. Is it just picking up the 50/60Hz power line? That's all around you in your house anyway. If you just don't like power lines, say that
(Remember, in a shovel rush, sell casting machines)
I suspect they wouldn't
A data center is a big grey box that sits there humming quietly, and that's it. They do require power and lots of it, but unlikely steam engines they'll happily use solar, nuclear or anything else.
It was very loud inside, but you couldn't hear it from outside unless the power failed and the generators came on.
https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/communities-are-raising-n...
As much as I doubt that spreading of the data centers is a good thing, noise is not the weapon to wield. Unless we are talking the center of a quaint town. And possibly not even then.
I am interested to learn where the 96db comes from.
I see only vague claims about up to 96db inside of a server rack, but could not locate a concrete measurement or method used to determine this number.
A decibel meter is about $20 on Amazon, often cheaper. I dont know what their agenda is, but they've got one.
So you're saying the UK should never have built a railway system? It sounds like tech is right.
I tend to like not fearing starvation every year, not fearing freezing to death every year and not having the vast majority of my kids die. Industrialization led to all that.
JFC I wish people on HN would read a history book.
Trains still do that today. They cut a locality in half with only certain crossing points being allowed. But at least enough people ride the train they can feel it's worthwhile.
There's now a gargantuan amount of documentation about their impact: - insane noise levels 24/7, you can hear them even at miles away - virtually no jobs brought to the place, besides some construction work early on - massive drain of local resources - massive eye sore
Like, I'm not against data centers per se, but you tell me they building one few miles from my house, I'm listing it the day I hear it and escaping as far as I can.
Can you share a link or two to this? Hearing a data center from miles away sounds suspicious.
- AI is going to take your jobs
- We need to build our data centers for this job stealing tool
- We need to build so quickly that there’s no time to do accurate assessments of what this will do to water or power supplies
Turns out people don’t like that. Who could have guessed? Anyone not living in a bubble.
Rejection (or fear) of AI translating into rejection of the physical infrastructure that supports it is perfectly reasonable.
And people opposing data centers today who are opposing unfettered data center creations will not look any *more* foolish than those who opposed the things you cite.