Not buying it.
AI doesn’t generate energy, it consumes it.
AI doesn’t build, fix, or maintain anything in the physical world.
AI doesn’t grow food, raise animals for food, care for the land or the animals.
AI doesn’t magically transport materials and goods from one spot to another.
AI doesn’t reduce insurance costs.
AI doesn’t eliminate transportation costs.
AI doesn’t create persistent jobs in quantity.
AI doesn’t produce raw materials.
AI doesn’t reduce most, if any, taxes.
It does make its owners tons of money in fees…at least for now.
At best, AI provides for faster computing and data processing. That’s it. The spectrum of its abilities. It doesn’t even provide intuition or true creativity or ingenuity. It can’t free associate or think outside its box. It’s a jack hammer in a data based world. A very, very expensive jack hammer. Ask those who have let loose their workers with Claude’s AI agent capability and didn’t realize the cost. One company blew through $500M in a short period of time before they knew what hit them.
What it does do in the scale being built is the ability for high throughput computing, data processing, and inference. Great for target acquisition and prioritization, battlefield management, image processing, and processing the unbelievable amounts of data gathered by the intelligence services – oh and all the personal data people are allowing to be hoovered up, often unwittingly, along with that the government hoovers up – and other even more nefarious purposes. It could even be an excellent market analyst, with the amount of data its being fed. In the end, it’s still a computing machine – not sentient, not intelligent. Often not even able to give correct basic factual answers from data it has stored in its matrix.
Fractal computing makes data centers obsolete. AI runs on micro computers that you can hold in one hand, smaller than a box of kleenex. Data centers are a money grab and when the pot is empty, the data centers will be empty. Meanwhile, water levels in aquafers plummet and electricity rates skyrocket, noise levels are unbearable for residents nearby the centers.
Tech insiders I know have been saying recently that AI is creating more tech jobs. AI is making tech workers a lot more efficient. Taking on the work of 3 or 4 people causing the need to hire more workers. They are generating more revenue. Getting more done. No more long term planning that involves finding and acquiring man power, training said man power, developing the projects plan of attack, executing plan, refining plan etc etc etc.. Now one person can write code on 3-5 different projects at the same time.
The exact opposite of what everyone is saying AI will do to employment at large.
I understand the loss these people feel – the tranquil quietude of life on the land. But this piece is pure propaganda. We are all making sacrifices ($6 gas) to save our Republic. We are at war, fighting for freedom. To think that a socialist/communist country would let you keep your land, data centers be damned, is clearly weak minded emotional complaint. With little trust in God’s plan for our great nation.
We are not going back to how it used to be (1950s) and no one knows what The Next Golden Age will bring. Something greater than we have yet to imagine. Wake up. Embrace the suck and get on board the only train that is headed in the direction of true freedom for the whole of humanity. The Best Is Yet To Come.
…be aware there have been multiple reports of late that much of the anti-datacenter commentary on the internet comes to us courtesy of the Chinese. They view development and control of AI to be a paramount concern for their nation, and seek to ensure we do not win this particular race.
Their disinformation goal is to delay implementation of datacenter construction in the U.S. long enough to allow them to achieve a substantial edge of us on this issue and eventually be the global master of AI.
This is a long way of saying: beware of negative reporting on this matter, as it may stem from those who do not have America’s best interests at heart.
Let me tell you about my granddaughter.
She’s 18 years old, and just graduated high school. She’s smart and talented. She wants to be a cosmetologist, doing hair and nails, partly because she knows AI is going to be a factor in lots of jobs, but probably not that one.
She and her friends HATE AI. Hate it. She was angry when teachers asked students to use it for assignments. She thinks it is making people dumber. She is concerned about the data centers and their water and power usage.
AI is a loser with young voters. That much I believe.
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My take is, if elite Big Money players building these centers are wise enough to give the public a large share of the wealth, computer tech development will go well. If elite Big Money keeps too much of the profits and passes losses to the public, it will not go well. The arms race argument against China or anywhere else is fundamental to this topic because datacenters do constitute weapons of war or support systems for war. If this is an AI bubble, it will pop and we will grow beyond it. If it is not a bubble, nice. If datacenters lead to the panopticon, which already exists, getting worse, that’s bad. There is, however, no power which can stop computer technology from continuing to develop. If it makes money or makes war, it will happen. Best thing to focus on seems to be ensuring the public has a large share of the wealth (maybe a 50% or more stake), and making sure the public has robust free speech and is not abused by the information being gathered, stored and used. ABN
American Buddhist Net 