Can is doing an awful lot of heaving lifting there.

Given that my sink cannot contain 20 gallons of water and that I do not even fill my sink full to do my dishes by hand, I cannot possibly be using 20 gallons of water to do my dishes when I do my dishes by hand.

it really depends how you do it, I don't think one serious non biased study has ever been done. probably an ultrasound bath is the most energy and water-efficient method

People have. That's a common objection to golf courses.

The difference here is that data centers are both economically and environmentally extractive. People in the community, or at least in the surrounding area, will play golf there. Data centers are purely extractive, and that's why they have become so galvanizing. It's transferring probably the only real asset these communities have left, their open spaces, directly to the elite.

There has been tons of reported frustration with golf courses in the past. So, yes, people have, and it's pretty consistent here as well.

Why not both?

If you really cared about people calling things out, you would be focusing on other topics than datacenters because people call all kinds of things out all the time. That fact you only care about data centers is telling.

The left has long been opposed to excessively watered golf courses too. I could probably find another piece of The Economist calling them foolish for that as well, if I searched.

From the Economist website: "ALL writers at The Economist are anonymous."

Is this your first time reading The Economist?

I see that they themselves call it "AI narration"

Are we calling TTS "AI" now?

People have managed (and sometimes do manage) to do without golf courses and refrigerators and dishwashers and cars (and roads for cars) etc, and should learn to be able to manage to do without such things, for multiple reasons.

Perhaps people can manage to do without "AI" data centres

Generations of them already know how

> We need to use AI to redevelop AI datacenters in order to cancel the harms.

This is worth money. It is worth a lot of money to solve the AI data center sustainability problem. And, solving the AI datacenter sustainability would preserve the AI value multiplier in other sustainable process redesign efforts.

> We need to use AI to solve for global warming.

It's actually imperative;

"Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49576124#49578556

> Watching the biggest pirates I've known suddenly talk about "defending artists" and strengthening copyright is amusing, but it points to a bigger problem.

Millenial here, hello. Yes, we were the biggest pirates, because we had no means to buy the music we liked, period. CDs were kidney-money (if the album we liked available at all), digital distribution was non-existent and cassettes were sounding worse than first generation shellac records in some cases.

I personally bought most of the music I used to pirate. I buy the eBooks I like, and keep a backup copy for myself. Heck I even hounded a CD from a disbanded group for a couple of years and ordered it online because the music was good and they deserved another sale.

Because for us, piracy was about the service at first. We went to concerts, bought merch, etc. to support them.

Also this brings me to the second point: You miss the point entirely about datacenters & AI datacenters. Second, you miss the point between AI, the tech and the building of AI the tech.

First, datacenters are nothing new, and nobody is opposed to "normal" datacenters. The difference between a standard datacenter and AI datacenter is almost night and day (power density, compute load, hardware portfolio, etc.). I always talk about AI datacenters, because I work at a datacenter. I know how these things can be made more environmentally friendly, but no, everybody has to move fast and break things. In this case, we're mostly breaking down our planet, accelerating water stress and global warming related side effects while destroying livelihoods of communities as a whole.

Second is AI as a tech vs. how it's built as a tech. Heck, I'm not even opposed to copyrighted works used as training data, many of us want consent. Control over whether their works are used for training or not. Not compensation, not money, but consent. Not to be seen as slave of these AI providers to feed them.

For artists, compensation is their right. Have you ever composed music, or performed even? Do you know how much effort goes into doing this (hint: We used to rehearse for 10 hours/week for 14 weeks to give a 90 minute concert)? Watch this [0] if you want some insight how a single song is assembled over ideas, takes, tries with blood, sweat and tears. Same for writing. Did you read Hyperion Cantos, Lord of the Rings, Neuromancer, Zones of Thought, etc.? I mean, even the fact checking in Ready Player One could easily take a year. These books created worlds, changed minds and the authors of these books and others deserve some fair compensation for this.

You may find graphic design, art and photography mundane, but when you're not taking selfies and shooting stories or taking videos of a concert which you won't be able to enjoy because of the video-grabbing session for likes, these can be very powerful mediums for storytelling or getting your message across.

Not everyone is against AI as the tech. I am not. I have developed agent-based systems with emergent intelligence before people knew the term autonomous agent.

Yes, we need better laws to protect property rights in the space of ideas, but not to solely protect the jobs, but TO PROTECT THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMANS AND THEIR FREEDOM TO CREATE AND OWN THE THINGS THEY HAVE CREATED.

"You'll own nothing and be happy" is a drug to make masses comply, and unfortunately, you're apparently one of the flag carriers of that crowd.

This post is written with a real brain, approximately 10 fingers, at 1x by a physical human you can talk with.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLqhOEzpWyo

Thank you, your comment was more informative than the economist article

They are using them to skirt the law

How is this any different to the invention of the cotton mill?

You don't get to pick and choose what productive technologies to adopt. You either adopt them, or you'll be paying the countries that do and you'll still lose your domestic industry to competition.

There’s no need to mince words, they’ve been aggressively told that AI will eliminate nearly every job.

If you need your job to feed your family then what Sam or Dario is saying is quite literally a threat to kill your children.

Of course they’re full of shit, it’s more like a very useful business automation project but if you say stuff like that you can’t be surprised when people hear it and form highly rational opinions about it.

I don't understand why it's being fought by left-leaning, many self-proclaimed communists that have been fighting for a world where we just hang out and make shitty art all day.

Isn't AI the only way we get to that? Who is gonna do actual important work otherwise?

Trying to educate them that water and power usage are the less problematic parts and not as bad as everyone thinks. It's the noise and lack of green power that are the problems.

No, there really isn't. It's more a question of how the data center is cooled. There are quieter more expensive options, which is why they often aren't used.

I'm saying the people who are affected need to lobby their own local governments, because the companies will never do the right thing until they are forced to do so.

But what people are most upset about are water and power, which are the two least problematic things about datacenters.

No thanks, they are loud. I even called that out. But no one should be living next to them. Those people need to get their local government to regulate noise from all buildings. The companies won't do it on their own.

(This is part of why I no longer help build them, because when I asked about reducing noise and using green power I was laughed at).

Great point, we shouldn't do jet engine testing either because obviously we need to put that smack dab in the middle of your local cul-de-sac and it can't be put anywhere else.

I don't do that anymore since I got laughed at by coworkers when I suggested we focus on using green power and reducing noise. So yes, my conscience is clear.

> isn't the problem then capitalism?

Nope, capitalism is not perfect, but it has lifted billions of people out of poverty and elevated their living standards. The hatred towards capitalism is as irrational as the hatred towards data centers. If you really want to find something to hate and blame all your problems, then blame it on corruption and incompetent politicians.

There's absolutely, obviously a place for data centers in our world and country, just like there already has been this entire century so far.

The issue right now is the boom of data center building has them being built wherever approval can be had, rather than in more reasonable industrial locations.

It's reasonable to not want a data center built next to you in the same way it's reasonable to not want an iron smelter or pit mine built next to you. There are reasonable places to build data centers, pit mines, and iron smelters and it's not residential neighborhoods. Building them in residential neighborhoods anyway because they can, is what is forcing this issue to a head.

That and water usage building them in places with water issues. There are a lot of places in the country that don't have water issues. Data can be moved around the country quickly. The problems are solvable, but the builders are more interested in chasing short-term dollar than solving them. The opposition should hopefully reshape the construction into a more reasonable reality.

> But it's not something that should be concerning for anyone outside the area.

Of course. Esp. for the bigger datacenters which generate their own power and release large amounts of emissions to the atmosphere.

It's good that that air never moves and all this emission stays inside the cube formed by the ground, four borders of the datacenter and personal airspace ceiling prescribed by the governments.

Given that the datacenter operators run air purifiers and give the filtered out emissions to government (or licensed 3rd parties) for conversion to carbon credits, there's no harm done.

Just some local noise nuisance, and maybe some heat, but all of them are manageable. Residents can use earplugs and more powerful air conditioners to restore or surpass their previous life quality.

This is not only progress, but how one changes the world for the better.

How is it not an existential crisis when it’s literally reshaping financial markets? That’s not just a local nuisance.

They are slow walking it because you simply can't build the generation fast enough anyway. It's also why you are seeing a lot of project with their own generation plants on site, either stuff like the SpaceX/X/AI (I dunno what you call it man) datacenters - i.e very adhoc methane stuff or proper LNG generators ala Meta.

This is mostly an America problem right now because that is where everyone wants to build the DCs and it's the market with the most stagnant generation: https://en.macromicro.me/collections/26367/electricity/14247...

What about it? Data centers are not built in residential zones.

> Why are non-Western populations so excited by Ai

Are they excited? Or do they just not have political control at a local level?

Non-Western populations (really, talking about China here) do not live in a democracy. The government centrally plans where they build things like data centers and homes and there is very little the populace can do about it. You cannot own land in China, you can only lease it. You can't even really talk politics in China in anything close to the same way you're allowed to in the US.

People in China are also generally more excited about progress since it has actively improved their livelihood and wealth over the last few decades rather than slowly eroding it like it has in many Western countries. The government there makes legitimate investments in very visible and beneficial public works projects. Why would you be unenthusiastic about progress when you've been getting subways and high speed rail and cheap luxurious EVs everywhere for the last 20 years?

I find this article incredibly weak, glossing over a number of legitimate concerns brought up by data center opponents. This sentence in particular is pretty egregious:

> In any case, even the noise worry is overstated: many viral videos of supposed AI data centre noise are really Bitcoin mines, not state-of-the-art hyperscaler facilities.

Really? You think people are building Bitcoin mines, in 2026? Please.

Let's also be clear here: AI data centers could be a wonderful thing if we had a government that was legitimately focused on shoring up the national grid, transitioning to renewable energy, and building nuclear power plants. You know who is doing that? China: with more nuclear power plant projects underway than the rest of the world combined.

Instead, the US has an administration that started another middle east war for no reason resulting in higher oil prices, cancels renewable energy projects and permits left and right, and seems hell-bent on moving backwards in every way possible. Electricity prices in many states have gone up by double digit percentages. I don't see that happening in China. I don't blame anyone for being against data centers, even if it is "FUD."

The West is not a single monolith. Attitudes towards data centers vary from country to country. As does the perception of how much influence people have over the government.

The actual issue, as far as I see it, is the financialization of capitalism. When businesses prioritize creating value to the shareholders over creating value to the society, people naturally care less about their success. The degree of financialization also varies from country to country.

Everyone is trying to figure out the chess board not realizing that they are being completely distracted by a simple game of chess. :)

In other words, since the USA endlessly debates everything, you might as well put out messaging that creates more FUD so that it opens up more chances they'll believe anything.

The dissonant mental state fuels the consumption that drives the economy.

No, it’s everyone watched the More Perfect Union video, saw sludge coming out of their faucets and low decibel hums ruining sleep, and decided to fight when peasants aren’t allowed to fight. Between this and Flock Cameras, tech isn’t making themselves the noble savior on a white horse and being a good neighbor when moving in.

Nah, make the cost of living unaffordable, make the homes and utilities unaffordable, pollute the water, and they’re preventing the kids from existing in the first place. It’s cleaner.

I think a large part is being close enough to existing utilities to save the installation costs of 40 miles of cable, telecomms etc (all duplicated of course). However, some data centres are built in the middle of nowhere but that is potentially then a nature problem because why spoil this nice countryside with a massive non-descript building?

I like Copenhill (https://www.visitcopenhagen.com/copenhagen/planning/copenhil...), where they decided that waste handling is not nice so why not make it nice by building a ski slope on it. I suspect that a bit more creativity could make people want data centres (free heating and hot water anybody? Hot spring baths? Free hosting for local schools and charities?)

I actually happen to know a lot about this! I have been in and around datacenters for ~16yrs and I work on direct liquid cooled hardware at $DAY_JOB.

Back when I was running my own startup I moved to Mascot, Sydney to be near Equinix SY3 that was being built which we had bought a decent chunk of committed capacity in. Mascot was originally an industrial area but was gentrified a lot over the last 20ish years but the datacenters, meat packers etc are all still there. It really adds to the charm of the place in a lot of ways, warehouses/factories that have been converted to cafes and breweries. Which is to say I don't think living near a DC is bad at all, they aren't very loud and they just look like big warehouses with lots of lights, cameras and no windows. Oh and security dudes.

Anyways. Yes. The hardware I am working at $DAY_JOB is all direct liquid cooled. The coolant that actually cools the hardware is closed loop, it's not expended. Which means you don't actually use any of it and it's considered good for the entire life of the hardware.

I normally don't directly talk about $DAY_JOB things because there are pretty strict rules so I can only use publically referenced sources but you can read a little bit about the coolant we use in this article [1].

The facility loop though is usually what people are worried about. A lot of datacentres that were built in low humidity environments use evaporative cooling which does indeed use a ton of water. However most data centers in more humid environments don't and either use loops that recycle the water but dump the heat (i.e rivers/lakes) or use closed loop systems with radiators etc. It's worth mentioning though that evaporative cooling is extremely power efficient vs most closed loop solutions so there is a tradeoff here. I don't think Google could achieve their fleetwide PUE (Power Usage Efficiency, basically measurement of how much power goes to things in a DC that isn't a computer) numbers without relying on it heavily.

Given the difficulties getting DCs approved in much of the world right now and the backlog on generation capacity (i.e power) almost all modern DCs are being built to use as little water as possible.

To give you an idea I think evaporative cooling of the type you would find in a state of the art Google DC with a PUE of ~1.1ish might use 1-1.1L of water for every kWh of actual equipment load (this is a back of the napkin estimate, don't hold me to it).

Conversely true closed loop will use approximately zero.

So yeah, evaporative is a big waster of water especially at GW scale.

1: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/nvid...

Don't build them next to homes. But don't NOT build them.