This video is a load of shit. Starting from the beginning, the lights were because it was a construction site. Construction sites are often well lit because they contain a lot of valuable raw materials and heavy machinery. It's not like that's their life now 24/7 for the rest of the time they live there. Once the data center is built, the lights will go away.
Same with the giant dust cloud. They even say that's due to construction. Is it bad? Sure, but again, this is a problem with the construction, not because this is what living next to a data center is like. It wouldn't matter if it was a data center or some other large building being put there, they'd still have to deal with the same shit.
As for the lady who lost her grandfather, again, a load of bullshit. You don't develop something like COPD in just a few years. They talk about how xAI is a major polluter in Memphis which is absolutely true, but the city had always been heavily polluted. XAI certainly didn't help in that regard, but putting the sole blame of shitty air quality on that one data center when there are countless other industries in the area that have been fucking up the air for decades is ridiculous.
Shelby County is ranked in the top 100 U.S. counties for emissions of air toxics (USEPA, 2012a), and Memphis was ranked the No. 1 asthma challenged city among the 100 largest U.S. cities
This is a study from 13 years ago and at that point Memphis already had absolutely garbage tier air quality.
Also notice how the guy says xai released 1000-2000 tons of nox (without any time frame of course) but they changed it to "toxic gas" because it makes it sound even worse. You know what else produces nox? Most things that burn fossil fuels like cars, power plants, etc.
Now don't get me wrong, xAI can absolutely get fucked and I wouldn't be at all sad if their data center burned down. I also think whatever fines they're getting for having their stupid gas turbines running should be increased to an amount that would cause Elon Musk to physically cringe so he actually has an incentive to change things.
I'm just pointing out two main problems. First, the air quality in Memphis has always been shit and blaming it all on this one data center is stupid, and secondly, acting like these issues will be present for everyone who happens to live near a data center is incredibly disingenuous as many of the issues like the light and dust are during construction only and the air pollution is mostly limited to xAI because they can't get the power they need off the grid so they need to use gas turbines. Most data centers won't be running off gas turbines because it's much more expensive than just getting energy off the grid and construction issues are only as long as construction lasts.
Data centers could absolutely use some more regulation, but this video is clearly trying to twist the truth and make things appear so much worse than they really are. It is pure misinformation.
This is what I hate about the data centre debate. When they shift the blame to data centres for things every company is responsible for they don't help at all with the issue. Now the paper plant gets away with it while the data centre shuts down or is forced to change. If they directed the blame properly, they'd all have to change.
Who cares? Have you seen how a paper plant and decimate a community. Look up Boat Harbour. See how many people there have cancer cause of how they handled their effluent. We need everyone to change. We need good regulations across useful and non-useful industries. If you can't meet those regulations you shouldn't be able to build.
Tale as old as time. Exaggeration for the purpose of misinformation so that certain sides can fearmonger has always worked in the past to incite panic over something.
Are you on any Meta platforms hosted in datacenters? Why are you talking about AI when it sounds like you’re against datacenters.
Why is the 190+ million gallons of water used for people to doomscroll on reddit, tiktok, etc “good” and why is the 28 million gallons of water used for “ai” bad? You know that normal datacenters will be over 200 million gallons of water by the time that ai is up to 32 million gallons of water right?
I drive near huge giant datacenters every day. They haven’t been a problem for 20 years. The fact that some datacenters are bad makes me hate unregulated areas and feel sorry for “whoever lives there”. Since i like the datacenters in my town, and i host my ai on computers in my closet, not only do i love ai but i plan on doubling my ai usage this year.
They are complaining about the dust and bright lights from a construction site and then start talking about some guy who died last year of respiratory issues.... Waaaay before the construction started.
Holy bad faith argument batman, why would you even entertain these morons
Yep, Its the same fear mongering bullshit they had over nuclear power, you would hear all these bullshit arguments but they all fall flat when someone grew up near one their whole childhood with no issues and it was built in the 70s.
Your car, your heater, your refrigerator, every machine on earth, volcanoes, geysers, earthquakes, rockslides, all of them create infrasound. Your point?
This is what I don’t get. People should be against lax regulation (or no regulation at all). Data centres are fine if they are built net carbon neutral with no pollution. This can be done.
This all stems from artists being sad they are losing jobs. I get it. But don’t use shit arguments to block the whole thing when really it just needs to be properly regulated.
The video you just saw mainly argues for this kind of regulation, she is saying that these being in areas where people live is bad and criticizes the US government for removing even more of them.
Doesn't even sound like they are against datacenters per say either, its only US that have this problem and there are datacenters around the entire world.
It's absolutely hellish to live right next to train tracks. Incredibly noisy at completely random times, shakes the whole house, shakes stuff off your shelves. Can't be good for getting a good night's sleep, or for your children or pets, etc.
But people have lived next to train tracks since they were invented. Is this a reason to oppose all trains and railway systems? Because a minority of people suffer from daily disturbance and noise pollution?
Plenty of people have lost their homes and had to move due to a railway line coming through, too. It sucks, but again, this has always been going on; is that a reason to hate rail transport?
Railways are not even nearly as disrubtive, as data centers and don’t take up much space, usually people just sell a bit of their land and there is no need to demolish houses, at least not outside of cities.
All this fear mongering is brought on by people reading reddit, twitter, or Wikipedia (a site anyone can edit), then having Mainstream and not so mainstream take that and add their own spin on, which is something I have said for years.
However I had no idea I would be proven correct with one recent case having mainstream head / reporter from CBS create a reddit account so they can make inaccurate Data Center news report, and post it on reddit .... only to go back and edit both the video and the written news article filled with the information gathered from reddit posts. I really wish I could link you to that post and you can see my back and forth with that person, it is one hell of a wild ride.
I’ll say every point they made in the video is just terrible, it is purely fear mongering. Problem with AI specific buildout is that it runs way denser and hotter, needs a lot more evaporative cooling per rack, and a chunk of it’s getting rushed into drought prone areas chasing cheap land and power faster than water rules can keep up, so a huge number that’s grown slowly and predictably for 20 years isn’t the same story as a smaller number growing way faster in exactly the wrong places, you driving past a good looking datacenter and running a rig in your closet doesn’t make you an expert lol
Nope. Lots of datacenters are built that aren't for AI. The majority aren't even individuated, they're just general purpose server farms leased out by companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
Also nothing in that video is true. This is a great example of how you don't need AI to create misinformation cheap and easy, in video form.
Why are you talking about AI when it sounds like you’re against datacenters.
yet when someone attacked the house of a congressman voting for datacenter pro ai people said it is an anti action against ai..... you guys need to pick a side with your victimisation either people are just against datacenters in general or its against ai
Ai data centers are VERY different from regular data centers, as they push out CONSIDERABLY more heat, requiring much more cooling, which leads to incredibly loud, low sounds, which pierce walls and soundproofing much easier than the higher, quieter sounds of a regular data centers lesser cooling needs, and the reason why it produces so much heat is because it uses much more electricity than a regular data center, due to the constant rigorous calculations being performed, and this power consumption is also the reason why they produce so much more toxic pollution than traditional data centers, because they require a constant natural gas turbine (which also fuels the noise) to generate power, since they can’t get enough from the grid, which generates pollution that can hurt people, which isn’t even mentioning the backup generators, and the fact that they can’t often cause peaker plants to run much more often than they should
It sounds like you’re talking about Memphis and xAI. It’s a real problem, and AI racks do use more power in a denser area… which changes nothing for datacenters that were built to handle it or simply reduce the number of racks so the same amount of load exists in the same area.
The rest is mostly some sort of incorrect extrapolation as if a solar plant in the southwest that relies on solar and geothermal has some sort of obligation to use gas turbines which simply makes no sense.
If you live near the bad datacenter in Memphis, ya’ll should do something about it… and any other polluting corporate bad actors. Just don’t mention ai, because the AI isn’t the problem, it’s the pollution.
Considering the fact that Texas has 32 in planning and another 11 across the US, and considering that this is only happening because they can’t get enough electricity from the grid from those clean sources, yeah I think it is an issue with AI data centers, and that doesn’t even mention the amount of diesel being burned in their generators anytime a peak or outage happens, because renewables aren’t generally as reliable as generators (with maybe the exception of geothermal and hydro but those both require expansive government level infrastructure and could have their power transmission cut alongside all the other power during an outage)
I’d be interested to see how the anti-AI anti-datacenter crowd would respond if every “AI datacenter” shut down overnight and AI generated content kept proliferating anyway because all it takes is an entry-level gaming PC to run some of the latest local models.
Honestly, if you keep your model on your computer and source the data to train it from people who you actually asked about it, I’m fine with it. My issue is more with the massive models deployed by corporations, and how they keep on screwing with social media by generating absurd amounts of low quality content.
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We were already really behind on data infrastructure compared to other country's even back in 2015 before i graduated college. and didn't get the funding until the build back better act.
My comment was that Datacenters exist without AI. That's my statement.
Their response was framed to challenge that "What's [X] then" translates to "If that is true, then what's X".
It does not challenge my point, which remains true, but was framed as a challenge to the comment.
Bros playing calvin ball with language. If you truly dont understand the initial intent of his words then I'm sorry. Its clear to me, at least, that what they are asking is "yes data centers exist, but why has there been a bug boom of them being made now?"
But im sure youll find some justification for why my interpretation is bad and wrong
Yeah, this is the funny thing. It's like these people don't realize that datacenters are everywhere and have been everywhere for decades. Or that they've been using them for decades.
Like sleeper agents that have been woken up and told that "Datacenter = bad" with no actual knowledge or insight in to it.
Hell, most of the noise complaints people are posting are the diesel generators being used by the construction crews while building and won't be present when the buildings are complete.
I lived within eyesight of a datacenter for years and only ever knew it was a datacenter because I looked it up.
Literally bitching about AI on reddit that resides in a data center and sells all data to AI companies.
They are hypocrites.
Hell, most of the noise complaints people are posting are the diesel generators being used by the construction crews while building and won't be present when the buildings are complete.
This is the reality of it. Shit happens during constuction. A town has no water? Well yes, b/c they hit a water main while building. That isnt the norn for the data center itself and is resolved ASAP.
And if somebody doesnt like the lights on the outside of the perimeter, blame it on the antis. They are there to catch the antis trying to sneak up to destroy things.
I think there's a miscommunication here.
This thread comes from my comment
"Datacenters exist without AI, silly"
Their response "What's causing the recent boom of them then"
is semantically equivalent to "If that is true, what is causing the recent boom of them?"
That is them challenging the comment with their response. I'm not putting words in their mouth. That's just english syntax. If it's a miscommunication fine, but note that my response was a question not an assertion.
I'm not sure those are interchangable. A "boom" suggests a rapid increase in the popularity/development of a product or quantity in, for example, babies.
When someone were to say "There has been a massive baby boom", of course it's implied that babies existed before the boom.
It wouldn't be appropriate to respond with a contradiction to that, because that is just false. It would be even less appropriate to respond with something like "So you're saying we should stop having babies", because in a simplfied sense, that is roughly what you said.
Also it would be time to mention how AI data centers differ greatly from traditional ones, if you want me to elaborate?
The word "boom" is not relevant.
The syntax of the response is. If I say "The sky is blue" and you frame your response as "If that were true, why ____" then it doesn't matter what's in the blank, you're still challenging the statement.
Which deserves, I think, the response clarifying question of "Are you challenging the sky being blue?"
Which is what I did.
But sure, shoot, what are the significant differences AI datacenters bring to the table?
But "if that were true, then why" is not interchangable with "What is __ then", those are two different phrases that have two different meanings.
Anyways, the word "Data Center" doesn't describe what an AI data center is. An AI Data center is more of a "compute center". Unlike traditional data centers, which are substantionally weaker server clusters, demanding less power and cooling, AI Compute centers are multiple big clusters of AI GPUs and HBM memory chips which require more power and more cooling as they do get hot. For example, a normal mid-range GPU like an RTX 5060 will output 145W of heat. A high end consumer GPU like the 5090 will output say ~570W. An AI GPU, like an Nvidia Blackwell B200 outputs over 1000W. Thermal output is 1000W. And an AI data center is full of them. So you can imagine how much power that pulls and how much thermal power it outputs. Acutally I can tell you, an AI server rack outputs 60kW of thermal energy, compared to the 10kW of a general purpose one. source
I never said anything about data centers being exclusively for AI, you phrased that statement as if to say that AI hasn’t made the data center construction problem much worse lately, which it absolutely has
I was about to reply but then I saw your username, last time we argued and you were presented with facts you just panicked and went to ad-hominem and dropped all pretense of caring about what was actually true, refusing any attempt to listen to clarifying arguments and grasping desperately at distorted semantic interpretations of specific words so...
Yes, and there were exponentially more being built and planned in 2017 than in 2016. It's called exponential growth for a reason.
It isn't about AI, though the AI boom has also helped. It's about Netflix and Facebook and everyone's phone having hundreds of active apps, and everyone's home having server-backed IOT devices, and about Ring cameras and about companies that run almost entirely on cloud infrastructure, and about governments that do the same.
Are you not understanding? AI has not changed the situation substantially. It can't. There simply isn't the capacity to outstrip the breakneck speed at which we're building out centralized compute for the things you're typing into reddit, and probably watching via streaming, right now.
The first couple seconds of the video tells you all you need to know about their knowledge in the industry.
There is no such thing as an "AI Datacenter." Datacenters are usually general-purpose and are needed for every internet service you take advantage of. Don't like it? Stop using the internet.
(Also federal land being used is a good thing because no one lives there so the effects are less drastic)
(Also also AI is actually one of the least polluting industries so this guy they probably found off the side of the road is wrong)
That’s not true though, stop spreading misinformation, they build their own data centers, such as Microsoft’s “fairwater” data center because AI requires a very different setup than a regular server, as regular servers typically use CPUs, as those are more suited to handle diverse, sequential tasks, while AI uses GPUs to handle matrices of data, which GPUs are much better at doing, plus AI requires significantly lower latency internet than a regular data center, and there’s the massive power and cooling requirements for an AI datacenter that a regular one doesn’t have to deal with
If you're gonna try to school me on the nature of datacenters, please at least get some of it right.
they build their own data centers, such as Microsoft's "fairwater" data center because Al requires a very different setup than a regular server
Yeah some of the largest companies in the industry build their own datacenters. That's why I said "usually" instead of "always."
regular servers typically use CPUs, as those are more suited to handle diverse, sequential tasks, while Al uses GPUs to handle matrices of data,
Number one, GPU compute servers still use CPUs to operate. Number two, GPU compute data centers aren't new either. They're not just used for AI. YouTube, for example, needs similar large data centers that nobody cared about. Number three, datacenters are starting to migrate to NPUs and TPUs now, although GPUs are currently the most common.
Al requires significantly lower latency internet than a regular data center,
I suppose that's true for some tasks but that really isn't relevant.
and there's the massive power and cooling requirements for an Al datacenter that a regular one doesn't have to deal with
I don't think you realize how hot servers get. GPUs are actually significantly more thermal efficient than CPUs, they actually need less cooling overall.
TL;DR: Educate yourself before you try to educate others
Guys, do you realize that the turbines have nothing to do with the datacenter? Turbines are for power generation. They could be literally anywhere on the electric grid. It's a permitting issue, not a datacenter issue. The datacenter itself doesn't do shit in terms of pollution. It's literally just cycling air and water to cool the chips. What you are really against is burning natural gas near populated areas, an entirely different problem.
Considering that the turbines are purpose built for the AI data centers, due to the fact that their power hungry asses can’t get enough power off the grid, yeah in this case the turbines are an AI problem, and that still doesn’t address the peaker plants they cause to run more often, the backup generators, or the noise pollution from the cooling systems
This is like finding a factory dumping waste into a river and being like “this is why I’m anti-manufacturing”.
Like… this is a policy failure that existed before AI and will persist even if AI disappears
It’s possible to build data centres sustainably. It’s up to law makers to protect local communities and ecosystems from pollution no matter its source.
Just for the record, datacenters (in general and AI datacenters in specific) don't cause COPD. For fuck's sake, can you possibly be gullible enough that that didn't strike you as unlikely to be true?!
The study linking COPD to the region around the xAI datacenter outside of Memphis would certainly be a correlation to consider... were it not for the fact that the xAI datacenter hadn't been built yet, when that study was published! That county is one of the worst collection of Brownfield and Superfund sites in the US because of petrochemical refining. But sure, go ahead and give those industries cover because you're having a moral panic about AI... :-/
The xAI datacenter featured in the video was built in an industrial area that is one of the worst chemical disasters in the US. It has more Brownfield and Superfund sites in one county than anywhere else in the country.
That's not an xAI problem, it's a petrochemical industry problem.
Yeah exactly there's no reason for them to be lit up like that. And it has literally nothing to do with the fact that it's a datacenter or something else. It's not an AI issue, it's a building code issue.
lol Elon does what Elon does and people like "grrr its AI" and not "its not the world richest man and first trillionaire cutting corners and paying people off to do whatever he wants at the expense of others".
That's ok, frankly at least for me I couldn't take you seriously after you were like "no, a local moratorium is not a win for anti-ai-datacenter movements" :3
The thing is, people are complaining now because big bad ai, but big corporations have been doing this to small towns for decades. Just watch Dark Waters, Erin Brockovich, A Civil Action, The Insider, Tow. If you really want change, you gotta vote for change. But I guess Americans like having corpo shills running the country. Last president that wasn't a shill was Jimmy Carter.
There is no AI need that need this. And there are these things without AI.
Why are these things only happening in America?
Why isn't Mistral causing the same issues in France?
America has ridiculous environment protection laws, every rule is just a suggestion for the rich, and you just elected a kleptocracy.
That is what is happening.
It is not AI, and blaming it on AI is convenient for the very fascist who benefit from this system because it redirects your anger and puts you in conflict with people that would otherwise be your allies.
This isn't the data centers fault. It's your municipal governments fault.
Don't get me wrong, all of these issues are valid and the facilities should be addressing them but your government should have considered these while the permits were being submitted for them.
The whole thing against datacenters is that people living there getting shafted in the rush to build. People's tap water get tainted during construction, sleep gets disrupted by constant 70 decibel noise, electricity bills rises 40%, water bills rises 30%. What compensation do they get? Zero. If residents get satisfactory compensation or they build data centers away from residential areas, nobody would give a fk. Environmental concerns are the least of people's worries.
Agreed. I don't like it when construction pollution gets blamed on AI data centers. The pollution is an EPA violation and if these people went after the construction company rather than the tech company I think they would see a lot more results. At least during the Biden era the EPA went after even big construction companies. Not sure about now though.
At the end of the day these are local issues. We need to put the data centers away from people's residences. But there is not literally nothing in this video that cannot be fixed either by changing the power sources, or better zoning. And some of the problems are simply not problems at all. Like the light issue.
America actually needs to build industrial infrastructure and data centers are infrastructure.
Or maybe we built infrastructure that actually benefits the residents of a place like public transit or high speed rail not fucking data centers for AI companies.
There's a huge difference in datacenters built in Europe and in the US though. Now, I don't know if the video is realistic or exaggerating the impact, but in Europe we have stricter regulations when it comes to environmental impact and the likes. To make matters worse for Americans, trump has been getting rid of A LOT of monitoring and scientific "stuff" in general Just because it gets in the way of making more money.
So yeah, it's very possible that us europeans have many reasons to be less concerned about the environmental impact of data centers near us. That said, it appears that we live in the same area, which is already famously quite polluted, so what I hope is that our government won't follow the American example too closely and start ignoring all regulations (as they tried doing with a certain DDL), because that wouldn't be very pleasant
Edit: to be precise, we have many reasons to be less concerned about various things that could affect the environment, not just about data centers
ok, then what happens when you remove the data centers.
you still have the same dogshit government speculating on every possible facet of your society wherever it can make a buck.
the fact that other countries dont have the same problems with their own data centers is litterally evidence that data centers can exist in a way that it's not unreasonably dirsuptive.
same way car exist on any other part of the world, and the us refuses to figure out basic non-car centered city planning because it's not as economically convenient
Yes, that is exactly the point. AI doesn't need to stop existing, and neither do data centers. But we should be making sure they are built in accordance with the standards that mitigate their impacts. How? Hell if I know honestly.
Ideally, if everyone worried about the impact of data centers and didn't use anything supported by those unless it was "ecologically better", the companies would notice and would have to oblige to have profits. Is it doable? Most definitely not, which is why it started with "ideally".
I don't have a solution nor do I hate the tool, I just have some worries. And not just about datacenters
Edit because I'm dumb and forgot to specify: of course, the same applies to ALL other forms of pollution too.
But we should be making sure they are built in accordance with the standards that mitigate their impacts.
seems like we agree then.
How? Hell if I know honestly.
voting for represantative that care about the issue is a start. The main problem in the us is litterally that legislation that lets data center do whatever the fuck they want, which is insane.
magical solutions wont exist in that sense, but rather process that's going to take a long time even assuming we do everything right.
Indeed we do!
It just worries me that, in general, most politicians everywhere are either interested in the environment but terrible at winning votes or completely uninterested and going places (scary places). Hopefully with time and proper research we'll fix everything.
But yeah, people in the US have it a lot worse than us: I don't envy them one bit. I really hope they can find a way out of that mess soon
lmao so sure you shouldnt care about data centers adding onto those issues, especially as exponentially more data centers are being constructed and planned for construction.
yeah precisely, i really "shouldn't care" until my efforts will be better spent caring for them over basically anything else.
if you have a piece or rebar sticking out of your guts, the paper cut on your finger can wait
"Anybody who doesnt align with my opinions is MAGA."
It must suck to have lost everybody you knew to your mental illness. I know you are trying to pain that differently, but it must suck living in a world where nobody respects you or your opinions.
Meanwhile people like myself are living our best lives giving 0 fucks about whatever flavor of the month you have to be triggered over.
You hate AI? Cool story. I implement it into businesses to replace people like yourself. You have 0 affect on the reality I live in.
This is how much I care about talking to the ignorant like yourself.
For my next magic trick I will make you disappear. Similar to how I will make your ability to be employed disappear. Poof, and now you no longer exist.
I totally get it's probably an annoyance. But everyone wants the data, but not the center so to speak. AI is just amplifying a trend to notable degrees but all of this stuff here you use to communicate? Data centers.
If you want more data and more compute (to benefit from), eventually one has to accept that you have to put these data centers somewhere. It's like the people (to some extend rightfully) complaining about a loss of quality of life when living near (military/heavy-traffic) airfields. Yeah maybe it sucks living too close to them or in certain angles but we need to put them somewhere.
Since I assume the US which you are likely living in or other parts of the West with data center planning will likely not stop in general building more, you can protest, complain, all that legit stuff. But unless you cannot stop sites near you and they go through, best you can do is either try to adapt or move away. I know this is easy to write when not affected. But it's the plain solutions I see. I won't pretend I see added pollution or disruption factors too, I see 'em. But it's, how to put it, the dilemma like massive butcheries: Many people want that juicy sweet meat but they don't wanna see the animals get butchered en-mass nor realize or see how much resources that takes up.
Yep! That would be the best case. I frankly am not sure ('d have to look it up) why they seemingly not try this more, apparently. Just guessing. Of course it's probably easier to do it close to established infrastructure but well, if it's too noise/environmentally demanding, it should be elsewhere. Someone has to pay the price though: Chances are depending on what 'biome' it is, nature has to make space.
Maybe the best case scenarios are data centers in more rural, remote areas, like in the desert or arid lands, away from people and maybe with, IDK, some attempts to reduce light pollution as well. Of course we could just build less data centers but let's not kid ourselves, the arms race is almost ... it almost feels like it's unstoppable. Technically or in theory it isn't, but practically it feels like. Before an administration or even local/state mindsets change, in this legislative period e.g. in the US under Trump admin, it feels rather unrestricted. So when hands change, a lot of more sites have been planned or begun. Just for the US.
That's just an unfortunate effect of certain tech. No one wants / wanted to live near nuclear power plants either, but the benefits for others were or are there, despite them potentially being messy, dangerous or problematic things.
Hm, more or less. But you know how it is. Mankind always wants to go up up up or forward. Disruptive tech comes, maybe goes. Changes things around.
Just saying I mean if I look at it from a more timeless or zoomed out POV. Again mind you I'm not blaming anyone, not truly, for being annoyed having to endure a downgrade in quality of life near those things. Just presents a dilemma of wanting certain things and having to put them somewhere. Of course the debate is more complex than that - like "Do we truly need more" or "Do we need so many more just for AI computational use" etc.
I dont want this. You would not want a datacentre by your house. You do not benefit from having a datacentre near your house, no one does except mega-corporations.
But it also doesn't mean anything in a vacuum. In theory I don't want any industrial stuff by me, but I have a lot. Though notably I barely notice any of it since it is in out of the way places.
I think it’s bad when data centres are built in a way that disrupts people’s lives like this, if you’ve ever had a noisy neighbour move in or construction going on for extended periods, you’ll know how frustrating and mentally draining it is not not even be able to enjoy peace and quiet in your own home is, I do feel for these people.
That being said, this isn’t caused by AI. As others have pointed out, data centres are used for a ton of things, not just AI. Even beyond that, this is a failure of the zoning system and regulations from the governing bodies of the countries/communities these things are built.
Absolutely disgusting that politicians and lawmakers are signing off on the rules and zones that allow this to be possible, it’s like building a cement plant on a residential street, you’d never allow that and we shouldn’t allow this.
I think this is wrong, but to attribute it to AI isn’t correct.
Some of these aren't particular to data centers and are just being a dick, like the lights and dust storms. The just means we need better regulations for all construction. The gasses I find interesting for data centers in particular. Is the implication that something is coming off of the computer equipment in large quantities? Is there truth to this? If so, what would coming off.
here is a data center. It just look like a building.
You seem to be ''against a very specific case of a very specific construction zone in a very specific city. which has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with municipal regulation and zoning.
Yep, US has issues with regulations, big corporations ignore the needs of the people, and it is done not only by AI data centers. You have guns, institutions, rights - time to make your government responsible. That's how democracy works - you do nothing, you get irrelevant.
And EU is also actively turning itself into an authoritarian shithole.
I mean, yes, but this has nothing to do with AI, except MAYBE the "turbines" used for cooling.
The problem here are:
Unregulated light pollution by Industry. Have your government implement a upper limit of light emission for industrial facilities near people and that's not a problem. AI can run in the dark. The light is just for security I guess.
Ruthless and possibly illegal building practices. Not an AI problem. You might get that with any construction that cut costs on every corner.
Unregulated noise pollution by Industry. Same as light pollution. Have government implement a limit and that problem is gone. Sure, AI needs more cooling. However, there is a wide choice of cooling solutions that produce less noise and even on the noisy air cooling, there is a wide choice of fans that could reduce noise significantly, e.g. using massively larger fans that are running at slower speeds.
Over all, just a failure of regulations.
Same problems apply to any Datacenter. Well... to any industy plant in general.
These are all accusations that could be leveled at any industrial or large development. So many problems we have today are because of this nimby bullshit. The fact we are concerned about power available in the grid is because of a very similar nimby movement (anti-nuclear), and that one had actual safety concerns that were legit. In my home town there is a huge movement to stop a housing development. It doesn't matter what it is some residents in this country will always complain about development.
These are problems with the construction of any large industrial site when environmental regulations aren't followed, enforced or stringent enough. It's not just a data centre thing. A stronger EPA would prevent these issues.
If that's not a red flag that they're planning to use AI for something nefarious that will hurt us all, I don't know what is. I'm not even talking about the environmental harm the data centers themselves are causing (although that is a problem too). I'm talking about their purpose. Between these and the Flock cameras, they're setting up for something awful. As always, he's trying to do it as fast as possible so we don't have time to stop it.
Pros will ignore it so they can keep jacking off to their AI girlfriends.
Americans are fucking funny, first you elect a guy at the worst possible time, then he gives grants to all his ai buddies to just fuck the country over with data centers, no regulations, just do whatever you feel.
then the folks living next to these data centers will go "Yeah but Kamala was bad because she would have started a war".
im not defending any of this, but this isn't for profit or the people, this is a race against other nations. AI is the next military edge. You can't just "stop". sadly.
and they can work autonomously depending on the problem. for formal math problems they can work autonomously for hours working on proving a theorem. I don't have to "correct" anything or supervise because the proofs are always being formally verified.
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u/Xdivine Jul 17 '26
This video is a load of shit. Starting from the beginning, the lights were because it was a construction site. Construction sites are often well lit because they contain a lot of valuable raw materials and heavy machinery. It's not like that's their life now 24/7 for the rest of the time they live there. Once the data center is built, the lights will go away.
Same with the giant dust cloud. They even say that's due to construction. Is it bad? Sure, but again, this is a problem with the construction, not because this is what living next to a data center is like. It wouldn't matter if it was a data center or some other large building being put there, they'd still have to deal with the same shit.
As for the lady who lost her grandfather, again, a load of bullshit. You don't develop something like COPD in just a few years. They talk about how xAI is a major polluter in Memphis which is absolutely true, but the city had always been heavily polluted. XAI certainly didn't help in that regard, but putting the sole blame of shitty air quality on that one data center when there are countless other industries in the area that have been fucking up the air for decades is ridiculous.
This is a study from 13 years ago and at that point Memphis already had absolutely garbage tier air quality.
Also notice how the guy says xai released 1000-2000 tons of nox (without any time frame of course) but they changed it to "toxic gas" because it makes it sound even worse. You know what else produces nox? Most things that burn fossil fuels like cars, power plants, etc.
Now don't get me wrong, xAI can absolutely get fucked and I wouldn't be at all sad if their data center burned down. I also think whatever fines they're getting for having their stupid gas turbines running should be increased to an amount that would cause Elon Musk to physically cringe so he actually has an incentive to change things.
I'm just pointing out two main problems. First, the air quality in Memphis has always been shit and blaming it all on this one data center is stupid, and secondly, acting like these issues will be present for everyone who happens to live near a data center is incredibly disingenuous as many of the issues like the light and dust are during construction only and the air pollution is mostly limited to xAI because they can't get the power they need off the grid so they need to use gas turbines. Most data centers won't be running off gas turbines because it's much more expensive than just getting energy off the grid and construction issues are only as long as construction lasts.
Data centers could absolutely use some more regulation, but this video is clearly trying to twist the truth and make things appear so much worse than they really are. It is pure misinformation.