> The goal is to find solutions and to advance the field

And why are we finding those solutions and advancing the field if not to improve lives? What’s the goal otherwise?

> so let's fire up whatever datacenter we can find

Because this is actively ruining our lives. This relentless, selfish drive for more and more data centres is hurting communities and the environment (you know, where people live), increasing prices of other things, consolidating wealth inequality, and much much more.

So no, let’s not “fire up whatever we can find”. How about we instead take a break from consuming vast resources, hurting people, and making everything worse, to work on the very solvable problems we have right now, which are very addressable with the things we already know.