alt Hacker NewsNone of these mitigations (although they’re good ideas) address what I think is the real issue here, which is that people don’t like AI. And why would they, when the dish being served by AI CEOs is job loss with a side of extinction risk.
I think many data centre opponents understand that being opposed to AI is not sufficient to halt a local project, so it is noise, water use and power consumption that they latch onto - although, in jurisdictions without plentiful water and clean power, those two reasons are quite valid.
In my own local community, there’s vocal opposition to a proposed data centre that is next to Lake Ontario, 500 metres from the nearest residential neighbourhood, on a brownfield site with 500 megawatts of clean power capacity. None of that makes a difference to those opposed.
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Maybe it's semantics, but I feel like local QoL concerns (mainly noise and electric bills, plus an overblown focus on water) are the primary driver for in-community resistance. Shoving AI into everything is annoying, and there's real ideological opposition amongst a lot of online tastemakers, but not enough to motivate John Q. Public to show up to county zoning meetings. If hyperscalers were tactful enough to limit impacts on their neighbors, I think opposition would be a much more niche issue.
> with a side of extinction risk.
My proposal would be to require data-centers to provide enough clean energy to power themselves for years to come. That would help humanity survive. Plus it would lower energy costs when there is more power-generaion available. Lowering your power-bill would make people love AI.
In my area (South Carolina) - the opposition seems hyper fixated on “water use” with little or no conversation around electrical usage or even equitable utility rates. AI itself largely absent from the discourse.