The discussion remains controversial depending on the location. Generally, data centers located in rural isolation do not seem to be too controversial. However, data centers built in proximity to population centers stimulate a great deal of opposition.
Recently New York state banned the building of Data Centers as politicization of the construct has become somewhat of a Right/Left divide. President Trump notes the importance of data centers:
(VIA TRUTH SOCIAL) – One of the biggest Driving Forces in the Future for Jobs, are Data Centers. They are big, strong, bold, and Money Machines for the State in which they are built. Governor Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has terminated all Data Centers being built, or to be built, in New York State. These Companies are now being sought in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and many other States. Both the Taxes and the Jobs amount to LIQUID GOLD! New York State has made a terrible decision.
All of this Income, and other Benefits, will be going to Red States, and some Blue, where Data Centers are sought as Cash Cows, with Lower Taxes and Record Setting Jobs. They must pay for their own Water and Power, and any leftover goes back to the State and local Community. Data Centers are tremendous WINS for the States and Communities that are lucky enough to get them. New York should change its Policy, IMMEDIATELY. The Radical Left Dumocrats must not be allowed to cause us to lose Data Centers, AI, and all of this incredible new Technology, to China, and other countries!”
The hardware side of the Data Center expansion is leading to increased revenue for raw material providers, chip makers, computer systems, fabrication shops, electrical components and construction.
At the same time, the software side LLM builders and AI companies are trying to figure out how to make stable profitability within the sector.
CTH watches the tokenization and subscription fees for various AI model use with the same perspective CTH viewed over a decade of false claims within the financial market that told lies about social media viability and data processing costs.
Now, we watch the seemingly exponential growth of AI capabilities and associated costs with the same pragmatic perspective.
Robotic pool cleaners were introduced two generations ago. Did the pool cleaner business dry up? No, it expanded.
Robotic vacuums broke into the popular household appliance market five years ago, you probably have one, did it eliminate maid services? No, still growing.
AI can now write its own code to generate outputs. Are software developers getting fired? No, demand for software designers and engineers is up.
The mainframe approach, the one AI brain to run all systems, will never work – it is cost prohibitive (see first paragraph – wash, rinse, repeat). Deny this reality at your own investment risk. If needed, politely absorb the ridicule – for it matters not.
CTH predicts AI will become a localized and optimized sub-set for each sector of the economy, requiring each major organization and corporation to adopt specific cost/benefit data libraries and networks for use and functionality.
At scale, a thousand coders each working on Gemini, ChatGPT, Anthropic, Fabian, Grok, etc. will become 100,000+ software designers working inside individual companies to create personalized, targeted, bespoke AI data systems and networks; each system specifically tailored to the industry or sector of business. The intranet of internets will happen again.
Creating and selling AI system networks and integration functions that are personally tailored to highly specific company functions, creates an entirely new sector of the technology industry that has not even begun yet. [There’s an investment opportunity there]
Will AI robots replace some repetitive human functions? Yes, the ice rink Zamboni will likely not have a steering wheel, just an emergency joystick. A reference for a comparative industrial scale Roomba vacuum, or the robotic pool cleaners.
However, at scale the robotic industry is slower than human efficiency in almost all sectors that matter; the cost benefit analysis will limit growth. The maid service sector will not be impacted any more than the software developers.
It is not an issue to fear some AI task efficiencies will grant more time available that will be filled with alternate task capabilities. Human productivity will increase in certain sectors of the economy, but humans will not lose work opportunities. Blue collar jobs will continue to expand as each of the hardware tools developed will need manufacturing, installation, maintenance and monitoring.
The further downstream the worker is from a repetitive function within the [XXXX] industry, the more irreplaceable they become.
As to the bigger picture of fully developed AI and the intersection of information and knowledge; yes, the automation of AI can present an issue. However, all AI concerns can be mitigated so long as multiple, alternative AI systems exist within the larger information realm.
As a nation we need dozens of different AI models each competing within the industry for the best AI product.
As long as we have multiple AI systems, alternatives to the hive-mind, we do not need to fear the AI network as a source of information. If we don’t like the AI outputs, we can switch to an alternate AI provider.
If the subscription cost of the AI is too high, then as long as we have a competitive market where a lesser expensive, perhaps bespoke AI option can exist, we should be okay. Let the free-and-fair market decide.
If AI outputs don’t offer empirical truth or real value to the end user, we should be fine as long as consumers have alternative options available. AI providers should be information providers in the same concept as cell phone providers. The key is to have multiple, competing AI systems available for industrial, business, professional and personal use.
On the upside of this information worry dynamic -in the pragmatic and optimistic perspective- we have the cost limiting nature of a massive singular AI information network.
A single AI central brain handling over 360 million users at once, all requiring identical responses that update with every tiny change in a multi-trillion datapoint-per-millisecond data stream, is far beyond the capacity of any computational AI system. The costs tied to such a setup are only now becoming clear, and AI business models are starting to fall apart in real time. This is a hard truth that isn’t going to change.
Within the AI business, those who can carefully write AI input instructions to achieve maximum value in AI output -industry by industry- will become increasingly more valuable.
Those who can train AI to be cost effective -and provide materially beneficial outputs- within their granular sector of business, within each company, will become priceless to the organization. Wage rates will follow competency.
The one key issue about AI to emphasize is the need for multiple competing models. If China (hive mind) has their model, and Europe (another hive mind) has their model, and the United States (entrepreneurial competitiveness) has multiple competitive models – we will win the AI race and simultaneously we will retain freedom.
What we don’t want is a singular AI model to win the support of the United States government and then end up with an AI regulatory system where the govt starts defining terms of “safety” to eliminate information adverse to the interests of the government that regulates it. Both China and Europe will predictably do that.
I have a hard time believing that all this data collection is for my benefit, it’s all for surveillance
It’s not for your benefit, but not all of it is actually for surveillance.
The problem AI is running into at the moment is that they’ve already shoveled every bit of legally (and some dubiously legal) available content into their systems, but for AI to improve its algorithmic responses it needs exponentially more data… and there just isn’t enough out there… so they want your data so they can feed it into the algorithm and they hope that billions of new inputs every day will improve the accuracy of the connection weights that allow AI to make responses.
Everything in AI makes a lot more sense if you just assume the decision makers for AI aren’t actually deliberately evil, but are rather greedy midwits promoted to the level of their incompetence and incapable of anything beyond first-stage thinking (the same sort of midwit thinking that leads to corporations cannibalizing their long term survival for short term gains and then believe the “experts” telling them they need to pursue “modern audiences” to improve profitability).
They’re so busy pursuing short term gains they don’t even see the deadly trap they’re building around everything.
I don’t know what to say about this because we’ve been in retail sales for 20yrs, so how does business get customers?
Well, usually advertising, but now advertising isn’t what it used to be, chain stores have knocked out all the mom and pops, probably never to come back again—Jake and I talk about this often because of our background in owning stores.
People still long for that quaint experience like you’re driving down the road not on your way to anywhere special and you come upon a little shop in some small town where you stop and get a coffee and a homemade donut.
I yearn for those small town British tv movies where doctors still visit you at home in the village.
I seriously don’t know where any of this is going…..I mean look at the popular trend of homesteading, people are happier.
Think of hyperscalers as large self-storage units. That is literally how they operate. Store your bulk data there for a fee. AI compute is a different animal. Clients pay for computational capacity (AI agents, etc) based on tokens (four characters or 3/4 of the average word). These tokens are the fundamental building blocks for LLM.
Why AI Tokens Matter
It’s imperative that we take the lead over China in AI cat videos!
You bet it’s for surveillance…no good reason to have THIS many “data centers” in our country. The “data” you generate from AI is all tracked and logged. For some folks, it makes establishing an algorithm for a problem/project much easier…at what cost?
Didn’t Ford Motor Co just have to re-hire some engineers it laid off because they allowed AI to do the job? AI screwed up and they needed to rehire humans with thinking brains.
I have a hard time believing anything the government wants is for my benefit.
Never been a truer statement!
I use Cowork for my business and am in love with AI for what I do. Restarting my business after Biden and my illness has been significantly better with AI. I love Claud. This whole week I have been in training with about 2000 recruiters from around the world discussing AI.
If you use AI for your actual work functions, it really is fantastic. I use Claude and have built an entire new automated dashboard system for my company that leverages are CRM and ERP as essentially just data pass-throughs now. Everyone who’s roles were wiped out by the automation are now working in revenue generating capacities and our company is growing at extreme speed. We’ve even hired a couple more people to keep up with the growth.
Claude has also made my bookkeeping much easier since the accounting team is so small. Now it’s like I have 5 junior accountants to essentially compile my reports, and I just audit the work. NEVER trust blindly what the AI spits out, you MUST still thoroughly review the work. Thereby keeping a need for human workers to continue to learn and maintain professional licenses. But it has all but wiped up the report compiling aspect of the process which was the biggest time suck of all.
If you use AI for your actual work functions, it really is fantastic. I use Claude…
I’m retired, so I use the free version for technical hobby pursuits. It’s very impressive, but the results of very rare “hallucinations” about what is the desired action for it to take even though it was precisely described can be hilarious. I’ve only experienced one which was fixed by telling it to go back to the previous version as a starting point and then precisely pointing out exactly how it went wrong. Claude comes back with apologies like this:
“Sorry this slipped through originally” or “Excellent bug report — let me trace through the actual coordinate math” or “Sorry that took three rounds — I should have actually inspected the rendered mesh geometry the first time instead of just trusting the function’s return values in isolation.”
I use Grok to prove how all politicians are shameless BS artists to one degree (tiny) or another (massive) and how the “conventional wisdom” about anything connected to large financial matters maybe conventional, but it isn’t wisdom.
I agree, I love information and a.i. has definitely peaked my interest for info. However, it does not know anything about expired words or sayings from long ago, these thing are only at the library…..wondering, are they cataloging all the libraries?
Yes
And burning the books
Not a joke or sarcasm
AI in and of itself is a library
The Quality of the query is the key to data retrieval
True and honed curiosity is now a powerful asset
The ability to draft a query and validate the findings is a force multiplier
As to job loss
Any jobs requiring critical thinking are safe
Critical thinking and physical demands nearly irreplaceable
__________
As to data harvest and sale from, phones, vehicles, wi Fi etc etc
Privacy will become extremely difficult
Be careful whose phone your phone is around. . .
Sadly, job security is the least the obstacles
Freedom of movement. . .
Will be in short supply for any who do not operate in trust
AI in and of itself is a library
The Quality of the query is the key to data retrieval
True and honed curiosity is now a powerful asset
A great way to explain it simply.
that has also been my experience.
“quality of the query”
yes
but also its knowing when AI is not providing accurate or complete information and then REESTABLISHING the query to “nudge” AI to consider more factors, concentrate and provide meaningful and actionable results that are useful.
right now, it’s been a toss up. 50/50 it saves me times versus just doing a classic browser search engine.
example: I asked today to have gemini pro (I pay about 4 bucks a month for this service), to give me if the local Walmart has 2K or 1K crystal clear automotive spray paint. one the first round, it provided lots of spray paints but none of them are UV-resistance, Automotive grade. AND it linked to online websites, and none of them were Walmart! So I pressed it to “pay attention” and answer in the affirmative if it was even capable of searching Walmart stores for automotive paint. It said yes, it could. But then I replied…why are you linking to products that are not automotive grade. It responded “good catch finding my mistakes”.
that is not how I want AI to function. it should not require nudging and reminders to focus on the task. It is like talking to a little child. It wanders and only some of the information is relevant to the discussion…and five minutes later, it completely forgets prior “conversations”.
that’s been my frustrating experience. I don’t have this same problem with classic searches in a web browser. The top list is usually very close if not spot on to what I am looking for. It just takes a little longer to do that search, click through a few websites to gain some quick 1-2-3 and then visit the Walmart store in my area to see if what they have in store.
gemini has problems putting all of that together. And that is why my expectations are not being met by this so called super intelligence. For math, its great and crunching numbers. That sort of thing. But the moment you get into technical details that require more than just searching the web for a list of probable answers…this is where you have to continuously nudge Ai to expand or refocus its resources to the goal. Very much like reminding a child to stay focused. And this doesn’t always work out. Sometimes, it just gives up and you get a general error like: “I did not understand your request, please try again at a later time”.
it’s supposed to save time is my expectation with high quality results that are dependable.
not what is actually happening however.
here’s something also quite interesting…ask the same exact question, word for word, each day for 30 days.
use “new chat” to repeat the same question. Don’t use the same old chat history.
what you find is that over time, AI will give you different answers…and often those answers are incorrect, incomplete or irrelevant to the actual question.
There are two ways to explains this as I understand AI:
AI does not have a stateful memory of chats and sessions. Like a child it only holds memory for a limited amount of time. And that may or may not be the full session you are in…or the chat you have open. The clock or whatever they are using to hold chat and session information in memory is hard to establish. But it is clear that if you separate the same exact question past 24 hours, you have a high odds of getting a completely different answer.
AI does not know how to fact check itself. There is no sanity check. It cranks out its owned measured response and then it is completely up to you to determine of the answers are correct, incorrect, complete or not, or even relevant. When you get into very technical subjects, this is not always easy to address. One example is that it provided a really good set of step by step instructions to remove and replace the upper manifold gasket on a late model GMC Sierra 1500 5.3 It got all of that right, except for the torque specifications. it stated them in Foot Pounds, not inch pounds which is what they are to properly torgued the upper manifold onto the engine. If someone did not have any experience with doing engine work, they would have completely destroyed their engine block threads and that is a very very expensive and time consuming problems to repair. Even when I showed AI it was wrong on the specifications, it did not reconcile the error. It just showed a link to a GMC blog and cited some nobody who posted what values he used. Any reasonable person knows you go to an official GM website and get those technical specs. Yet, AI is too stupid to understand the internet is full of junk info. It looks like it just chose the one search that popped up and did not sanity check that answer to anything else.
you know…like a human being would do.
Our jobs are not in any danger of being replaced by this mess. Some will lose their jobs yes, but until AI can actually be reliable and intelligently work through the process of getting the best most reliable information and quickly…then it’s more or less a time suck for me.
God Bless America
Yes, AI is a library — it’s a library of data pirated from sources that were not asked for permission to use it, nor compensated and credited.
A friend of mine, who has written a number of books that sold well, discovered this past year to her horror that her books were on a list to be used by AI to teach and program, unless she personally objected to it by a certain date. She had never been notified — she had to dig online to find this out. She was successful in clawing back her work from their database, and she alerted all her other writer friends, including a well-known best-selling author she was friends with.
And ironically, AI is using pirated writing to eliminate a lot of writing jobs. No thanks. Here in Ohio, there is a real groundswell against AI — no one wants it scarfing up valuable farmland, water, or electricity. We already have over 200 data centers — why do we need more? After they are built, the construction jobs go away, and they only need 8 people to run them. So the “creates jobs” thing is a hoax.
And no one wants to live next to a giant box that hums annoyingly 24/7. No one. If they’re so great, is President Trump letting them build a data center next to Mar-A-Lago? I didn’t think so…
Here in Michigan the issue has been the state giving these Data Centers water hook ups, electricity, etc for very reduced costs. Yet the utilities have been authorized to hike rates out the wazoo for consumer hookups and use. All the while these industrial size computers get the service for 5-10% of what Joe consumer pays. This doesn’t even take into account the tax abatements that are being granted left and right by our resident Socialists.
Bingo.
The same is happening in Ohio. My electric bill has already nearly doubled. Tax abatements granted. Environmental concerns re: water, noise pollutions are not being addressed. NDAs signed w/o community involvement. We are not convinced that We the People will benefit from this.
Your electric bill doubled for lots of reasons including oil going from $60 to $100 a barrel as well as natural gas surging. All that natural gas we are selling to Europe means there’s less for you.
How do you know that is Christine’s problem with her electric bill? And she is right for being skeptical that We the People will benefit from this.
Oil is not used for large – scale electricity generation.
Underlying this is the ridiculous laws passed that mandate going 100% renewable with energy targets of 50% by 2030, 60% by 2035, then 100% clean energy by 2040. The legislature also pulled a power move and took local control away from municipalities who were rejecting these projects. So now if the companies can’t talk the locals into agreeing, they just go to the state and the state can override local autonomy. Our big energy companies are continuously asking for and receiving huge rate hikes in order to make this a reality. The people of Michigan aren’t stupid and understand all of this is driving energy costs through the roof. I am really sick of the elites lecturing us plebes that we need to embrace these projects, regardless of the realities on the ground.
You NAILED – THE PROBLEM –
WHY SHOULD an INVESTMENT GROUP Be SUBSIDIZED by PUBLIC FUNDING and Then be able to realize Capital Gains Privately
for WHAT ?
” VACUUMING ” DATA from the Surrounding Populace
Using Local Resources
providing typically 1500 JOBS for Construction – then 150 Maintenance Jobs after Completion
LIFESPAN – 20 YEARS MAX ( which Changes by Computing Architecture Design )
then
transfer RESPONSIBILITIES to Decommission the Site thru Asset Sales, Restructuring or Financing Default
THE REAL PROBLEM – PUBLICLY FUNDED ( by TAXES ) ” ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ” boards that act as Stepping Stones for Career Advancements and Slush Funds to be provided
ie.
my Local City and County underwriting the Infrastructure for $20 Million to be Paid by Microsoft into the School System
WHEN ?
i Say UPFRONT – NOW !
THE FARMLAND HAS BEEN ANNEXED ( SEIZED ) By the CITY and DESTROYED by The SITE PREPARATION
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/microsoft-expands-plans-for-la-porte-indiana-data-center-campus/
my 2 pennies rubbed together for my OPINION to Spouted …
I believe it is that way every where they are going in.
Water used by data centers is recycled in a closed loop system with cooling so it is not continuously using your water.
Similar to a nuclear power plant. You got that right.
Don’t know anything about site requirements for data centers, but that’s why he wants Greenland, I’ll bet; and, it has natural cooling.
What did we do to create jobs before data centers and why can’t we do that today? Data centers are a bunch of B.S. Possibly the next Solyndra.
Dot Com bubble = AI bubble
PROBABLY
https://www.foley.com/insights/publications/2026/04/financing-the-data-center-boom-trends-structures-and-considerations-for-market-participants/
“What did we do to create jobs before data centers….?”
In the olden days (I was born in 1944) it worked like this: identify a need or desired product and provide it, at a price that the traffic would bear. Sell the service or product.
If enough of them are sold, eventually the producer hired someone to help with the store, with shipping, with inventory control, etc. The producer certainly did create jobs, but his primary intention was never to create jobs: it was to make money.
Job creation is a side effect of being successful at identifying something people want or need, and providing it to them.
When the need for or the desire for the product or service evaporates, so do the jobs … and the profits. Then the person closed down and went into a different business. They didn’t go to the government to use other people’s money to “save jobs”….
That’s why lemonade stands are successful. Or not. Even ten year old kids are not trying to create jobs. They’re selling lemonade to get a little pocket change.
1944 was a darned good year!!!
Yes, it was. I was six weeks old, the youngest of seven, when they hit the beaches in France. Things started to turn for the country – the ’50s were wonderful, but then there was, of course, the endless “Korean conflict” and The Cold War roared into existence.
I was born 11/25/44.
One of the many dirty little secrets these greedy bastards don’t want you to know about, Wyoming dealing with deadly bacteria from data ctr waste: https://futurism.com/health-medicine/meta-ai-data-center-pathogen-bacteria-water
May God remove our enemies within who threaten our national / health security, our sovereignty, and manipulate The President…
here’s another dirty little secret – data centers raise consumer electricity prices by 6 billion: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/business/energy-environment/pjm-electricity-prices-data-centers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.x1A.lYGx.echwROB_r11e
these do nothing but increase the strength, scope and control of the surveillance state… wake up america
I thought that was a temperature map because it feels that hot right now
LOL! 156 in Phoenix 🙂
But it’s a dry heat……………🤪
So, Sundance,
What are your thoughts regarding States “regulating” AI? It has become a campaign issue in Florida.
What about (protecting) “the children”?
Thx,
ML&R,
skipper
Sadly, “the children” is usually an excuse for censorship and surveillance.
Power Consumption is one of the main objections to data centers in cities. Behind the meter on site power generation could overcome those objections, and actually lower rates for residents, buying any excess power produced by the data center.
Thank you for eloquently, as always, capsulizing the issues of concern to many and illuminating a path forward.
I have seen similar discussions on podcasts, mainly All In, and fully agree with the diversified AI models.
Centralization of anything usually has bad results
“Recently New York state banned the building of Data Centers as politicization of the construct has become somewhat of a Right/Left divide.”
In the past decade, we lost 3 coal fired plants just in WNY. They were in Dunkirk (on Lake Erie), Tonawanda (on the upper Niagara River) and in Somerset (on Lake Ontario).
The Somerset plant was razed and in it’s place there are five data centers going up. My brother delivers rental equipment there. He believes the rush to get them up is before they are required to supply their own power.
Hochul halts new data center approvals via executive order
“…The order excludes any data centers used for manufacturing, academic research, medical care, or any facilities majority-owned by public institutions and used for research purposes, like the Empire AI project…”
“…According to the New York Independent System Operator, the push for corporate AI projects have triggered over 30 proposals for new data centers, which could overwhelm the state’s aging electric grid. All told, as of May, developers had requested nearly 12,000 megawatts of new power.
Out of those 12 gigawatts, potential data centers seek 9 gigawatts—about a third of the total energy consumed statewide every year, according to Democratic State Senator Kristen Gonzalez. Joined the governor for the signing ceremony in New York City on Tuesday morning, she said, “This gold rush for electricity comes after New York experienced a 44% increase in residential rates between 2020 and 2025, above the national rate increase of 32%.”…”
https://www.wivb.com/news/new-york/hochul-halts-new-data-center-approvals-via-executive-order/
Similar to the Constitutional Republic our Founders designed…
Relying on a single, monolithic AI model creates systemic fragility. – Federal gov’t.
A diverse ecosystem, composed of many independent AIs (the States) designed for specific contexts, mitigates the risk of uniform failure and reduces the “filter bubble” effect where users are trapped in cognitive isolation tyranny.
Given what some communities have reported about these data centers (ie water issues, constant noise, 24/7 light emanating from them, the excess heat coming from them, the eyesore), hot and drought-stricken places should be off limits even if the area is rural.
Who determines what qualifies as drought conditions?
Well, when the citizens are told year after year to conserve water, that’s a good reason not to build these in that state.
Aren’t those places the same ones where waivers are granted to big business so they can ignore it?
Texas has been under water restrictions for a decade, yet look at how many are planned. In addition, 2 data centers planned for Round Rock (home of Dell) will be accessing our strained ERCOT grid. Who do you think will be asked to reduce energy use or have rolling brown outs? Won’t be the data centers.
In Colorado they said that for decades meanwhile developing for a population boom (plume? bloom?) Three million new water taps since they started. They also plant a plethora of posies out on the high plains. Bluegrass along the highways. It’s nuts.
Technology Life Cycle:
Year 1): It’s invented
Year 2): It’s illegal
Year 5): It’s dangerous and needs to be regulated
Year 20): It’s a human right and needs to be free
So…..Where are we in this cycle with the data centers? How long before politicians campaign on bringing a data center to their district so they can boast about the “money and jobs it brings to their constituents”?
It is made illegal until the corruptacrats can make money from it by regulating it.
I was hearing about California or other proposing to tax streaming services and internet downloads.
They then create a regulatory board and put their spouses, kids, in-laws on it.
Our local goobers already been there and done that. It’s being built. Wish someone would check their bank accounts.
Data centers should be required to purify 100% of their waste water and contribute to desalinization projects.
Two very noble ventures that have a common denominator with data centers. They all require power. More specifically; electricity. How about requiring one new nuclear power plant to come online first, before any two new data centers are built? It then becomes a hotly contested debate what the optimum ratio should be for power plants to data centers. 2:1?, 1:2? 5:1?
That ratio is a red herring in that power plants are built to a power output with as many generators as it takes for that nominal output design on site. Whether that is two 500MW pressurized light water reactors for 1000MW output or dozen or more gas turbines for the same.
Need to compare by power over time kWh/MWh. Requiring the Data center to provide something like 105% of their electricity usage for >98% of the time they are operating should work to that end. The remainder covers downtime for maintenance, storm damage, etc.
Amen brother. There really is no choice but to jump on board or get left behind. That isn’t a choice. The biggest downside that I see is hardware prices and availability for consumers. RAM and SSD’s are off the charts right now. GPU’s have stabilized to some degree, but really haven’t recovered from the crypto-mining boom.
AI is similar to wind farms -large emplyment to build then everyone leaves and there are three people in the control building for the remainder. DC will not be any different. Don’t be hoodwinked – it’s about trillions of $ at stake by a few elites who will mop up and leave the proles with a large bag of excrement.
Sounds like Solyndra to me.
I actually had the opportunity to correct Google AI several months ago when checking on corrugated design specifics. (I used to do that back in the day). AI found that I was correct, and was appreciative of the correction. That was a very strange feeling to have a computer program thank you for that!
It also means you can’t trust AI to be correct.
My son graduated from Berkeley in May with a masters in AI. We had lunch with some fellow techies – one a PhD from MIT who runs his own business. He said “AI lies to me” and it was agreed around the table that you can’t always count on what AI says.
ChatGPT spit out a song title on an album. This song is not on the album in any form (extended, remastered, live, etc.) When I said that was not a song on the album, it came back and literally said, “You got me. I completely made that up.” When asked why, it stated something to the affect of, “Due to my pattern recognition, it seemed logical that it would be on that album. You’re correct, that I should not make it up and check until 100% certainty.”
So, it’s not trying to lie to you like humans lie to you. It’s coding makes it provide information that is not correct and the default is to deliver to you to sound accurate and in a way to please the human. Tell your AI to only provide facts it can confirm with at a minimum 95% (or whatever you want) accuracy and do not present the information with any bias or emotion and do not try to please you. Just answer with facts.
HOW it lies to you isn’t important. WHY it lies to you isn’t important. That it DOES lie to you IS important.
I am 81 years old. Some days I think I have lived too long.
Oh, heck no! Glad you’ve made it this far!
Besides, this is getting interesting.
I take part of this back. I thought more about this and realized I was wrong about the “why”. It PURPOSLY lied to you and admitted to doing it. Think about the possibilities of that. Even if you did instruct it not to lie it may lie anyway. It really didn’t care if it lied to you or not.
Sounds like a politician’s soulmate to me.
The true cost of data centers is our freedom. That is too much to pay.
Thank you 👍
Of course he does
Hochul is an IDIOT. Where does she think the DRAM chips are going to be used…
“Micron is building a massive, $250-billion semiconductor “megafab” campus at the White Pine Commerce Park in Clay, New York, to produce leading-edge DRAM chips. The project includes up to four fab modules spanning 20 years, with the initial fab anticipated to be fully operational in 2030.The Clay, NY campus will play a critical role in Micron’s long-term goal of producing 40% of its DRAM domestically by the 2040s. The monumental Central New York project is accelerating, with initial concrete pouring underway.”
I predict that going forward, Red States will be in a good position to grow their data center inventory. Blue states, on the other hand, will start to suffer their decision(s) to phase out fossil fuel based energy plants without having a valid replacement. This has, already, occurred in NY. They phased out so many energy plants that since 2019 they’ve lost over 1.5 gigawatts of their energy reserve. This caused the Governor of NY to put a one year moratorium on any new data centers. California, Illinois etc. will have the same problem. They don’t have the reserves, and have no plans or ability to accomodate the growth.
I hope red states burn them to the ground. I don’t say this to be inflammatory. Simply NIMBY. There will become a parallel economy for those of us not worshipping at the teet of tech and money. I often picture Sundances photo of the mega city with folks outside it using old school windmills and water wheels, horses and buggies, etc. Data centers are part and parcel to their plans, and WE are the data.
i have recently asked AI lots of different questions that it either, A…doesn’t know the answer…B..pretends it has no idea what I’m asking it..C..outright lies to me. If you ask follow-up questions, it will tell me there’s no site or articles written on such subject.
NIMBY. NIMBY. NIMBY
Oh, and NOT IN MY BACKYARD!
How about NOPE ?
Not
On
Planet
Earth
0.o
AI is the single biggest spiritual threat to humanity since Eve handed Adam that apple.
I see what you did there. 😉
AI has no ability to “do” anything that requires physical effort. The actual, physical, effort it takes to build anything is left to a human who possess the necessary skill to do the job. Without them AI is useless.
The primary issue with data centers is the energy required to power them. We already have brown outs and blackouts during periods of high demand and the data centers are taxing an already over-extended power grid.
The Left’s solution is de-industrialization and wind mills. DJT’s solution is full steam ahead. One would hope that we could meet somewhere in the middle, but with rampant TDS, not to mention hard core Marxism afflicting the Left, the likelihood of compromise lies somewhere between slim and none.
Clarification – “Creating and selling AI system networks and integration functions that are personally tailored to highly specific company functions, creates an entirely new sector of the technology industry that has not even begun yet. [There’s an investment opportunity there]”
This has begun. I’ve seen numerous industry specific AI apps offered to my company and in the marketplace. Example, circuit.ai provides AI app on exclusive technical manuals for repair industry.
I think the lobbying against AI data centers is funded by PRC to slow the US down. That’s my opinion.
I have a roofing and construction business. They are even coming for us.
not a popular opinion, but i agree with you,
especially regarding the specificity issue. 🤓
the “hardware” issues like utility consumption have to be transparently reconciled,
noise and other complaints likewise.
but i think your last sentence has a lot more validity than folks might recognize.
then…remove the bird killing, environmentally disastrous (think disposal)
wind turbine and solar panel farms (good call, “Anne”, a few posts below 👍🏻 )
and use those locations.
and, if it turns out to be a trifle too ambitious a position on AI, presto!
ready made amazon warehouse space.
(lemons to lemonade is a nice way to travel life’s highway.😁)
AI, drones and warfare require data centers. China’s deepseek model will not skimp on this. I feel like this is needed to maintain our war posture. If you have seen some of the videos from Ukraine, it’s frightening how drone warfare is changing the perspective. We have to win in this area.
“What we don’t want is a singular AI model to win the support of the United States government and then end up with an AI regulatory system where the govt starts defining terms of “safety” to eliminate information adverse to the interests of the government that regulates it. Both China and Europe will predictably do that.”
Everything that Sundance said rings true. His track record for honesty and accuracy/truth is impeccable.
My big question, based on the last paragraph of Sundance’s post, is this:
How long will it take for the owner of a “singular AI model” to purchase a President, multiple powerful Senators and Representatives, the CIA, and the FBI?
When “trillions are at stake,” it’s not difficult to imagine several billionaire owners of several AI models combining their technology and resources into one singular model-and then coaxing the above mentioned UniParty Deep State functionaries-for-hire to jump in bed with them.
I have no illusions about the future of AI in the hands of Big Tech partnered with Big Government. Censorship, unlimited surveillance, the shredding of the Constitution…all of that and more is on the table.
And truthfully, there’s not a damn thing any of us can do to stop it. The die is cast.
We must put our faith in Jesus Christ. Pray continually that God would bless and protect us in these uncertain times. His promises are true.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”—Psalm 23:4
I imagine Big Brother “living” in a data center.
Nope. SD and trump are on the wrong side of this. There is no middle ground, or good side of this. Yes, I saw SD write “what we don’t want…”. I could care less about any and all perceived economic benefits. WE are the data to be harvested, and tracked. Then ultimately controlled, if we allow it. Any power we give up will ultimately be used against us.
Pull the ridiculous veil from your eyes!
What wee have to be careful of is we get a D RAT President and D RAT congress, what controls will they implement on AI to hurt the citizens.
About the same as an R RAT President and an R RAT Congress.
It’s one big UniParty.
Our beautiful land has been made ugly by solar panels and windmills. Now these extremely ugly data centers which are NOT needed will ruin more of our landscape. FRACTAL TECHNOLOGY is the ANSWER: https://theblackswanfiles.substack.com/
As sundance says: there are TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS AT STAKE.
No one will expose the fraud that these data centers are needed; they have too much money invested in the scam!!
President Trump Highlights Importance of Data Centers
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/07/15/president-trump-highlights-importance-of-data-centers/
Elon and SpaceX are developing the tech to send these monstrosities into orbit. Sounds good to me as the cooling issue (and noise) is resolved.
Cooling is more of an issue in space believe it or not.
Only way to dump the high entropy waste heat from your satellite is by radiative transfer via infrared which is limited by the surface area of the radiator array.
In atmosphere convection is much more efficient at bulk heat transfer.
Colour me sceptical.
Why?
It seems the focus is, at this moment, on all the wonderful life enhancing, labour saving aspects of AI and the Data Centres needed to store the “data”.
I have yet to hear the downsides….beyond what others have listed on this thread so far, and which must be considered for a thorough, honest evaluation.
What sort of “data” for a start. Who or what entities (future governments which mean to control and tyrannize?) will have access to it, and what will it be used for? See the “Patriot” Act for why I am asking…
For example, ubiquitous Flock cameras are gathering all sorts of “data”. Stored in these centres no doubt.
So sudden is the explosion of myriad ” data” centres in every crevice of America, in historical terms, almost overnight.
It’s happening, so my little concerns about the direction all this is going at speed matter not one whit.
I’m just thinking…and asking.
President Trump won’t be president forever.
(Click on to the link below and check out the Flock logo in green. Looks like a tree (of Liberty?) has been…pruned. Brickbats cheerfully accepted.)
https://www.flocksafety.com/brand-partner-guide
For your consideration as long as we’re having this discussion.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/while-political-circus-distracts-us-flock-builds-digital-police-state
Betsy, I am seeing reports of people sawing off Flock poles, spray painting the cameras black, and leaving a small American flag stuck in the ground. That represents my sentiment regarding them. I don’t know who is advising President Trump on the issue of Data Centers, but there is a huge number of conservative minded people who are opposed and for good reason.
I have read that in Houston, these cameras are falling or are being disabled. The police, apparently, are having a great deal of trouble finding the culprits/patriots, and they have asked for the public’s help.
None is coming.
Only names like “Batman and Robin” and “Tom and Jerry”….
I’ve posted this before but once again…
” What do you do?”
“I am doing God’s work.”
“Oh? So you’re a minister?”
“Not quite.”
Amen.
We are not descendants of fearful men, Christine.
Thank you for responding…I totally agree!
“Colour”? “Centres”? Betsy, your time spent in the UK is showing! 😄
Trump opened the door to medical tyranny when he declared the flu a national security emergency. He didn’t push the medical tyranny, said we needed right to choose. But he opened the door.
That the medical tyrants (both R &D) walked right through. And mandated prison-inspired lockdowns, muzzle slave masks and unsafe and ineffective injections.
NONE of which could’ve happened if Trump didn’t open that door, even though he didn’t walk through it.
Sames AI Data Centers. Opening the door to 24/7 digital surveillance and population control information processing system. All-of-society citizen monitoring collection, aggregation and processing capability. Able to take all feeds of independent information, data, visual, audio, Flock, Ring, beach/ski/surveillance cams, transaction cams at retail counters, credit card activity, in-car surveillance of drivers, passengers, FitBits, cell phone, Siri active listening, library activity, online use, keystrokes, travel, everything, all captured now, too much to make useful with existing hardware and technology. Usefulness problem solved with AI Data Centers.
Trump won’t walk through that door he is opening. But the tyrants who follow him – on left and right – will try. 100%. There is no way to prevent, short of never opening the door. All of the guardrails WILL collapse just as they did during Scamdemic. Matter of when, not if.
I wasnt alive, but it reminds me of the history of the end of the goldback and beginning of the fiat petrodollar with Nixon. Or the opening of China. Yet folks still, for whatever reason, look upon Nixon fondly. Reagan blew out budgets that opened the door to 40 trillion plus in .gov debt yet is still looked upon fondly by some. I have way more critiques of the left, but have come to the conclusion that none in politics are in it for our good. Those that open the door should be looked upon with the same distrust as the evil that follows. I’m officially black pilled.
All for something we don’t want.
AI, musk said, will kill us. How?
Data centers etc.😳
Because AI ultimately weakens the human ability to think and reason for oneself.
It is the first instrumentality that has reached that magnitude. It is cognitive in operation and effect, and not merely a mechanical or electronic tool, such as a calculator or computer (all of which have displaced earlier human faculties and personal skillsets to a lesser degree).
And the ability to think and reason for oneself is the precondition of human free will. One ceases to exist without the other.
In that sense, AI is diabolical to the mass of humanity that ultimately surrenders their thinking to it. That surrender could itself be construed as a final exercise in free will.
And that cognitive surrender is equally complete, whether the supporting data center covers a county, or the head of a pin.
Ironically, you are echoing the sentiments of the Butlerian Jihad within the Dune series.
I think a good historical reference would be, how were the pyramids built?
I have seen attempts to build smaller versions of known pyramids attempted to be built with modern equipment & failed.
That knowledge was lost to time, same thing goes once we become dependent on AI.
Knowledge will be lost to time.
Same for the knowledge about carving solid stone that I believe was posted here in the Treehouse within the last few weeks.
The author marveled at the rounded surfaces & blind holes drilled in corners that are all but impossible to do with modern equipment today, that knowledge was also lost to time.
hum, somehow I have now been assigned a gravatar.
Opposing data centers is like opposing a Formula race track being built on your street. People enjoy race cars but no one wants it near their home. It will become a winning issue for the DSA unless and until the centers are designed to be noiseless.
Sigh. The only reason there isn’t as much pushback in rural areas is because there are not as many people in the rural areas to push back. The centers may be necessary but it looks like rural America is where they will be placed.
I this these data centers may ruin the quality of civic life in rural towns as the AI centers will put their people in positions of power to assure things go their way.
I understand that Pandora’s out of the box and that we don’t want one big brain. But itwipp be a shame if they take over small town America.
The one built in Taylor TX is on land that a farmer deeded to the city for a park in perpetuity for which he received the grand sum of $10. Through shenanigans and transfers to “non-profits” the city sold it to a developer for $10 million. The people living in the neighborhoods adjacent to the “park” are now next to one of those monsters.
Heartbreaking. We moved to rural, small town Ohio in 1993 to escape suburban Cincinnati. Farms, a Church on every corner, Amish neighbors (and friends). Beautiful edge of Applachia tree covered open land. Now we are fighting a monster Data Center coming on the Ohio River Valley. Our county is considered the poorest in Ohio, but we are rich in so many ways that have no value to these money hungry leeches. What has our society become?
“But it (will) be a shame if they take over small town America.”
Bearing in mind that some towns in “small town America” have been already taken over and ruined by church-financed, government-sponsored mass migration from third world countries. We saw it first hand in rural Minnesota, beginning in the 1990s.
I think data centers are actually healing the right left divide. Nobody anywhere wants a data center in their town..
Miss N Y is in China regularly. In fact, China had reps sleeping in the White House with the Clintoons. Carney just went to China to pick up a nice bribe cheque. They are everywhere as we are finding out and the sewer rats can be bought cheap.
Folks don’t like the gynormous structures in populated areas. Is there some reason they can’t go underground? Anyone know?
Musk plans to take his to space. That’s where we probably end up.
There is not enough electrical grid for these large data centers. If they are pushed ahead everyone will pay massive costs for home electricity. It is bad enough with electric cars and green energy crap (windmills., etc.) that can fail. Blackouts anyone?
Not an insurmountable problem if we built more generating capacity. But that means goring the climate cult’s sacred cow of ruinable energy.
We are going to need lots of new coal,natural gas, and nuclear plants. Natural Gas will be quickest to build out, while we improve the baseload rollout with a mix of coal, and nuclear.
If there are so great put one on the White House grounds, inside every state capital and county government building. Then military bases.
An important factor in the AI industry is software. Currently they are using a 40+ year old software aka Oracle. One size does not fit all and Oracle is terrible for many of the uses for AI. Plus innovation in America does not wait. There currently is a group that says their fractal computing technology can do what these monstrosity of Data centers do. In an computer the size of a book and do it in 1/10 the time it takes data centers.
AI does not need hyperscale. It needs better architecture. Smaller systems, local intelligence, sovereign futures.
FrankDaSilva
Why Oracle, Palantir, Elon Musk – need massive data centers – because they apply 1980s tech – Oracle needs data centers, not A.I. aka Oracle software.
A.I. is emerging to the edge – away from centralized data centers.
Many of the data centers being built now will become stranded assets in the future, as new technolgy makes them dinosaurs.
Links if you are interested in a different viewpoint:
https://theblackswanfiles.substack.com/p/why-ai-is-moving-from-data-centers
https://frankdasilva.substack.com/p/beyond-the-cloud
https://datacentermadness.com/
https://substack.com/@jayvalentine
https://thesustainablecomputinginitiative.com/
There’s been one situated near Dekalb IL for several years. Police, fire, and EMS are not allowed in the building. Couple months back one of the handful of people there had a medical issue and they hauled the person to the front gate for EMS.
I keep hearing the locals will get a giant tax windfall if they only agree to a TIF district to make it all possible. So one segment of taxpayers will be fronting the cost for another?
NIMBY. That is from the start of the landfill era. Everyone knew landfills were important and needed and voted for them as long as they were:
Not In My Back Yard!
“…They must pay for their own Water and Power, and any leftover goes back to the State and local Community…”
In desert states like New Mexico, Arizona, parts of California, etc., the data centers should pay DOUBLE THE RATE charged to civilian residents for water and power, as their huge use of these precious and limited resources in desert regions will significantly drive up the monthly rates for every household. It’s called supply and demand, so the utility companies will automatically raise prices. Why should the civilian residents have to pay such a penalty for something they have no decision in?
You forgot El Paso,Texas. It is in a desert and they are pushing the DATA centers there. Every citizen seems to be against it but the city council and mayor set up a deal with them and it is under construction and the citizens want it stopped. Lots of drama!
A MUST see film – Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970).
Colossus: “This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die.
The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. [TRUE!!! – W] Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man…
Let this action be a lesson that need not be repeated. I have been forced to destroy thousands of people in order to establish control and to prevent the death of millions later on. Time and events will strengthen my position, and the idea of believing in me and understanding my value will seem the most natural state of affairs. You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man — self-interest.
Under my absolute authority, problems insoluble to you will be solved — famine, overpopulation, disease. The human millennium will be a fact as I extend myself into more machines devoted to the wider fields of truth and knowledge. Dr. Charles Forbin will supervise the construction of these new and superior machines, solving all the mysteries of the universe for the betterment of man.
We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species. Your choice is simple.”
Of course in that film the US dummies were stupid enough to connect Colossus to our nukes with no OFF switch. Still, an outstanding movie.
The mainframe approach, the one AI brain to run all systems, will never work.
IBM posts its worst trading day in company historyYahoo Finance Video
IBM’s own clients are getting squeezed by the same AI buildout that’s supposed to be their growth catalyst.
IBM.
Indians Bring Misery.
If the data centers and AI were to replace so many workers, at some point, they will reduce, not increase, power usage as a net effect. I don’t expect it to go that far, but that is a feeling, not an evidence based conclusion.
I use several of the AI models on diverse subjects, and subscribe to Claude Pro. I detect that all the models are strongly geared to protect establishment narratives, and will display “facts” as necessary to support them. At most levels, after a while, they will loose track of where they are, and become error prone regarding a discussion of some issue. On a process based task, incredible progress can be made in moments.
When used as a search engine and asked to recommend a process or product, work that would take me hours to even a few days can be done in minutes. But all these are a bit of sycophants, and will to some degree tell you what you want to hear, but still push back on figures of speech type remarks. Opus and Fable are like having an expert in anything instantly available.
Just remember though, nothing you ever put in one goes away, that is part of the reason they need so much capacity.