Thread

1. aliasxneo · 1791145670 · focus · HN ↗

   I lived in a smaller rural town near a Google datacenter. During my career there I had routinely come across some outlandish accusations made about our water/power usage from the locals. But for obvious reasons I could never dispute them. I remember we hired a local who'd grown up in the town and he was "really surprised" when he started to see what we were doing to remain efficient.

   The current data center craze just feels like the same thing but on a bigger scale.

   1. thayne · 1791153423 · focus · HN ↗

      My biggest problem with the data centers getting built around me are that they are building new natural gas power plants to power them, that will be greenhouse gases and decrease local air quality. I would be a lot more ok with it if they were using wind or solar. And maybe built it somewhere that didn't have a water shortage.

      1. cogman10 · 1791154841 · focus · HN ↗

         One being built near me is being built on public lands that are being sold off for datacenters. That's an additional pretty big negative (especially since the specific land was set apart as a wildlife habitat.)

         I do really dislike that AFAIK almost all of these are being powered via burning fossil fuels. Any way you slice it, it's going to mean that locals end up paying higher energy bills.

         1. SoftTalker · 1791157023 · focus · HN ↗

            I guess we can assume that the executives at the big AI companies don't believe in man made climate change.

            1. catlifeonmars · 1791157735 · focus · HN ↗

               A(G)I is supposed to fix everything so nothing matters /s

               1. foo12bar · 1791159542 · focus · HN ↗

                  Why is this sarcastic? Isn't this a plausible possibility?

                  1. taybin · 1791160270 · focus · HN ↗

                     Given that everything important has trade-offs, no, AI, even if it were very very smart wouldn’t be able to “fix everything”

                     1. roenxi · 1791164867 · focus · HN ↗

                        If we compare 2025 to 0025, a truly remarkable number of problems have been solved by, effectively, intelligent people doing research. While it is impossible that AI will fix everything it is plausible it will fix most things since it looks like it'll be able to do research faster, better and with a higher quality than humans as well as more effectively communicate the results to the masses.

                        1. geaibleu · 1791166974 · focus · HN ↗

                           Yet Altman and Amadeo are talking how AI can kill us. So either it solves some problems it creates or kills off humanity... This is a gambling addict level rationalisation of betting your house to win it all at once.

                           1. misiek08 · 1791179576 · focus · HN ↗

                              The path they are talking about solves also a lot of problems, tho. They don’t care, because they’ll already live on Moon, Mars or will be dead.
                  2. cogman10 · 1791165094 · focus · HN ↗

                     There's not.

                     The first problem, in order to reverse a chemical reaction, you need to provide at least the offsetting released energy of the initial reaction. That means for CO2 you need to provide at least as much energy as was released when the carbon oxidized in the first place.

                     The second problem is that the CO2 is diluted in the atmosphere. Consider the amount of energy needed to remove salt from ocean water, it's not simple.

                     It just takes a lot of energy to that what was done by burning fossils in the first place.

                     1. SoftTalker · 1791166259 · focus · HN ↗

                        Maybe not. You don't need to chemically turn the CO2 back into hydrocarbons and free oxygen. You just need to remove it from the atmosphere.
                     2. Marha01 · 1791176109 · focus · HN ↗

                        > The first problem, in order to reverse a chemical reaction, you need to provide at least the offsetting released energy of the initial reaction. That means for CO2 you need to provide at least as much energy as was released when the carbon oxidized in the first place.

                        This is only a problem if AI won't develop cheap carbon neutral energy sources, like fusion or advanced fission, or more efficient solar with cheap grid-scale batteries.

                  3. akomtu · 1791165635 · focus · HN ↗

                     The rule of thumb is that technology creates problems that cannot be solved with the same level of technology.
                  4. Pxtl · 1791167677 · focus · HN ↗

                     Do you think an LLM can change the laws of physics?

                     1. Eueudhsbsj32 · 1791170414 · focus · HN ↗

                        Which societal problems require changing the laws of physics to fix?
                  5. sirtaj · 1791173654 · focus · HN ↗

                     We've been hearing some variant of "engineering will solve climate change when it becomes important enough, so we don't need to worry now" since the late 90s.

                     1. Marha01 · 1791175962 · focus · HN ↗

                        > We've been hearing some variant of "engineering will solve climate change when it becomes important enough, so we don't need to worry now" since the late 90s.

                        Well, it was true in the 90s, and it's still true today. Once climate change becomes important enough (that is, causing actual significant damage to important, wealthy countries), it takes just one such country to start a stratospheric aerosol injection project, or, if space launch costs become low enough, put a sunshade between Earth and the Sun. Such solutions have their own risks, of course. But if climate change really becomes bad, they will be tried. And from what I have read, they have a good change of succeeding.

                        1. sirtaj · 1791178298 · focus · HN ↗

                           It will still be true another 30 years from now perhaps, but nobody who has the actual funds to spend seems to care. If the world was actually taking it seriously, it would be dealt with like the ozone hole was. Instead, we're still debating whether it's real, and if it's real whether it's important, and if it's important whether it is more important than - I don't know - pretty much anything else.

                           What qualifies as a rich nation anyway? Europe seems pretty rich, and they're melting. One would think the time is now.

            2. crote · 1791159038 · focus · HN ↗

               Climate change is a lot less important when you are rich enough that it doesn't impact you personally, and when you don't care about what the world looks like after you die.

               Sure, millions of people are going to die due to climate change, and that's going to impact the company's profitability, but by then your stock options will have already vested - so that's a problem for someone else!

               1. hackernud3s · 1791165275 · focus · HN ↗

                  They could be doing more to combat climate change, but that's also true for everyone in this thread.

                  Personally I will forgive them the Datacenter carbon if they are willing to stop flying private jets.

         2. jonas21 · 1791177053 · focus · HN ↗

            Google, at least, purchases 100% of its electricity from renewable sources. This doesn't mean that they have renewables feeding directly into all their datacenters at all times -- but for every kWh they consume, they purchase a kWh of renewable energy somewhere and add it to the grid.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.