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.

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