This is a really long way of saying "We need to burn fossil fuels to make more money."

It didn't make long-term sense for our world before AI. It makes no more sense with AI.

HDThoreaun 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

More like it’s a really long way to say the government has utterly failed at making sure electricity generation and transmission capacity keeps up with demand so datacenters have been forced to get creative with alternative ways to power themselves. These companies absolutely want to use renewable energy from the power grid but the government blew it.

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Aurornis 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> This is a really long way of saying "We need to burn fossil fuels to make more money."

Like every other industry in the world?

I’m kind of amazed that AI data centers have become the political talking point for topics like water usage and energy use when they’re just doing what every other energy-intensive industry does. The food arriving at your grocery store and the building materials that built your house also came from industries that consume a lot of fossil fuels to make more money.

	▲	roxolotl 14 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The difference is they are new. It’s not rational but people on the whole generally are ok with the status quo of how the sausage is made largely because they don’t really think about it. But new systems being spun up provide an entry point for a discussion. Ideally that discussion can then be widened and open up an opportunity for wider scale change. Or nothing happens and it all becomes the new status quo which most don’t think about again.
	▲	TSiege 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		The difference is that the food industry at least feeds me and a house provides me shelter. The people in charge of building AI data centers intend to replace all labor in using my own and leave me begging for peanuts, while also making energy and many goods more expensive and ruining the environment
	▲	TSiege 12 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		FYI Fairly certain this account is a bot. Acct created in 2023 and has 36k karma
	▲	AkelaA 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		We need food and housing. We don't need AI.