The hysteria around datacenters will be to the US/Western world what the burning of its fleet was to China, or (more recently) what the banning of nuclear power was to Germany. Bravo to whoever coordinated this generational psyop.
The protests are a good counterweight to the big tech AI propaganda. The former is a consequence of the latter. It’d be better if everyone was moderate and reasonable, measured and considerate, but that’s not the world we live in.
People do not hate AI. I know a lot of people, through work and social life and there isn’t a single person not hating AI but even disliking it slightly. Confusing not wanting a fucking Data Center where you live with “hating AI” is a real thing though
Calling it a psyop is a non-explanation. Water is wet and your opponents will oppose you. That much is given. The interesting question is why the side supporting data centers failed to get their message through.
Did they not know how to argue for their case convincingly? Were they unwilling to do what was needed to get people on their side? Were their ideas against the interests of most people? Or was the issue mostly about the people in charge?
Republics have historically fared well against more authoritarian societies. In no small part because they are not stuck with the leaders they happen to have. If a leader becomes a liability, a republic can easily replace them. Companies can also do that, except when the leader also happens to be a major shareholder.
Not only that, but this is basically the sales pitch of AI:
Voter: So, tell me about this AI stuff. You wanna build one in my backyard right?
AI CEO: That's right! It'll increase the cost of your water, electricity, and likely lower your property values due to people leaving because of the 24/7 daytime lighting and noise pollution!
Voter: Well I kinda don't like that at all!
AI CEO: Great! Because that's not all! Once we really improve on our AI, it will eat your job for now and forever! And, wait till we embody them in robots. Whoo-boy! You won't even be able to drive a truck or plumb pipes for a living! Ain't that great?
Voter: What? No! That sounds terrible!
AI CEO (thinking): Why can't I get to these schmucks?
It's the economy stupid. If you don't offer material improvement with UBI instead of selfishly flexing your utopian visions of Star Trek robes and replicators and you and only you living for a thousand years, don't be surprised if voters don't give you what you want politically.
Right - so instead of getting mad at datacenters, how about getting out of the way of building more powerplants?
Electricity is the ultimate fungible resource. You can convert electricity into food, housing, medicine, video games, football games (either sort), transportation, etc.
The more electricity we produce, the more broadly prosperous we will be.
It's not a question of needing more electricity - we don't need any electricity at all. We got by without it for 100k years until just the last few. But still, the more we have, the better all our lives will be.
It's a real problem because we were sold a post industrial dream which could only happen if the hardest computation anyone would ever have to do is sending an http packet.
Electricity is destiny, if you can't produce it you will be a puppet of those who can. See Germany.
You're part of the problem. This insufferable contempt and disdain you're displaying toward the views and concerns of the population is what riled them up against tech and AI.
Yes, keep saying "hysteria" and calling opinions other than yours "a psyop". That will definitely win over hearts and minds instead of catalyzing even more ferocious opposition.
People’s opinions are valid, and I wish tech CEOs were better at addressing them, but ultimately it is hysteria and it is a psyop, and the US will regret it.
A lot of capital was looking for a place to get parked. AI and hardware seems like it has the best prospects going forward - especially with baby-boomers retiring and the new generation getting less opportunity to climb the economic ladder (aka catering to them is not attractive to investors).
AI is attractive to governments similar to any tech capable of war, so the race for offer capacity would give tech giants massive capital from lucrative government contracts that then gets into the flywheel of model training and selling to the masses.
The problem was they built data centers in a sloppy, dirty, loud way. Imagine if the first cars were like that? Or the first electric distribution methods? Do it right if you want to grow it.
It is obvious that is about fight for resources and supremacy between humans and the machine where the machine is also the capital that seeks the discount for human labor. How can the competition between capital and labor be resolved when capital has found a replacement for labor and competing for resources to serve its own needs? Will capitalists and technocrats give up? zero chance of that. Will labor and humans accept the machine and capital supremacy? zero chance of that.
So the conflict of interest will just escalate more and more.
I think something that isn’t talked about enough is how the tech industry burned its bridges in the last era before AI.
For example, Facebook was a site you trusted for enjoyable socializing and it morphed into a horrifically evil platform.
Amazon.com is a massive rug pull where it used to be an amazing place to buy good products at good prices, now it’s a hellhole of dark patterns, sponsored listings, and upsells.
Try to find one popular Internet company from ~2010 that hasn’t been massively enshittified or turned into dystopian surveillance/algorithm/addiction capitalism.
The tech industry trained its own customers to believe that any product they launch will eventually get way worse than it is now.
I mean, it should surprise no one that the sheer dislike of the billionaires making AI is ruining the perception of the technology they are building. If we should go and blame someone, it's certainly them. I agree 100% with OPs article.
Idk maybe step 1 wasn't popular.
Did they not know how to argue for their case convincingly? Were they unwilling to do what was needed to get people on their side? Were their ideas against the interests of most people? Or was the issue mostly about the people in charge?
Republics have historically fared well against more authoritarian societies. In no small part because they are not stuck with the leaders they happen to have. If a leader becomes a liability, a republic can easily replace them. Companies can also do that, except when the leader also happens to be a major shareholder.
Voter: So, tell me about this AI stuff. You wanna build one in my backyard right?
AI CEO: That's right! It'll increase the cost of your water, electricity, and likely lower your property values due to people leaving because of the 24/7 daytime lighting and noise pollution!
Voter: Well I kinda don't like that at all!
AI CEO: Great! Because that's not all! Once we really improve on our AI, it will eat your job for now and forever! And, wait till we embody them in robots. Whoo-boy! You won't even be able to drive a truck or plumb pipes for a living! Ain't that great?
Voter: What? No! That sounds terrible!
AI CEO (thinking): Why can't I get to these schmucks?
It's the economy stupid. If you don't offer material improvement with UBI instead of selfishly flexing your utopian visions of Star Trek robes and replicators and you and only you living for a thousand years, don't be surprised if voters don't give you what you want politically.
Electricity is the ultimate fungible resource. You can convert electricity into food, housing, medicine, video games, football games (either sort), transportation, etc.
The more electricity we produce, the more broadly prosperous we will be.
It's not a question of needing more electricity - we don't need any electricity at all. We got by without it for 100k years until just the last few. But still, the more we have, the better all our lives will be.
Electricity is destiny, if you can't produce it you will be a puppet of those who can. See Germany.
AI is attractive to governments similar to any tech capable of war, so the race for offer capacity would give tech giants massive capital from lucrative government contracts that then gets into the flywheel of model training and selling to the masses.
The problem was they built data centers in a sloppy, dirty, loud way. Imagine if the first cars were like that? Or the first electric distribution methods? Do it right if you want to grow it.
So the conflict of interest will just escalate more and more.
For example, Facebook was a site you trusted for enjoyable socializing and it morphed into a horrifically evil platform.
Amazon.com is a massive rug pull where it used to be an amazing place to buy good products at good prices, now it’s a hellhole of dark patterns, sponsored listings, and upsells.
Try to find one popular Internet company from ~2010 that hasn’t been massively enshittified or turned into dystopian surveillance/algorithm/addiction capitalism.
The tech industry trained its own customers to believe that any product they launch will eventually get way worse than it is now.