What's the rush to build data centers and develop AI?
Posted by Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 96 comments
Picture source: https://koeppen-geiger.vu-wien.ac.at/shifts.htm
Hi. I'm wondering if anyone can overlay the climate projections with the diabolical plans and current behaviors of the tech oligarchs, and just oligarchs in general?
Many are wondering what's the rush to build AI data centers? Why next to US cities? Why in hot, drought prone places? They seem like they're trying to beat the clock. What's the clock?
Here are my best guesses but I don't know enough to understand how these issues interact. Midterms, global class consciousness continually rising, climate change, shock doctrine opportunists, and the general AI race. Also they're freaked out about birth rates, though this doesn't seem as urgent. Also, China doesn't seem as urgent either.
Anyways, I'm now wondering if giant data centers are how tech bros are marking their territory for the future land carve up?
**That's the end of my question. Below is some information I've been turning over as I watch what's going on.
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Up till recently it's felt like they ignored climate change for profit. More recently it's appeared they may be trying to speed it up to open the N pole to trade routes. Rus sia has seemed like they want it because of trade routes, defrost Siberia for use, and would hold the the biggest piece of livable land as people migrate north. Rus has 6.3 m sq miles, 25% is currently livable. Canada, 3.5m sqmi, 20% is currently livable. Greenland 836k sqmi, 20% is currently livable.
I'm sure most folks here know about the reactionary movement, techno feudalism, dark enlightenment plans. I think they're all the same thing, correct me if I'm mistaken. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment?wprov=sfla1
We know they want to carve up a lot of places and let billionaires run their own small countries like companies. Call them freedom cities and rule over their people. There's word that plans are in progress to destabilize and overthrow multiple latin American governments so they can develop more freedom cities in S America. There's at least one there already Prospera in Honduras. Remember he pardoned the ex president from Honduras for narco charges.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%B3spera?wprov=sfla1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hondurasgate?wprov=sfla1
Something I don't get is development in places like Gaza, isn't that region going to be uninhabitable if climate change persists?
Honorable mention to carrying capacity and the green revolution living rent free in my mind. It's obvious they are intentionally doing things that cause massive loss of life. Gutting USAID, gutting public health, fertilizer shortage.l, fuel blockaids. What's their goal here? Just give it to me straight, is it half? Is it more? What's their vision?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution?wprov=sfla1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_arable_land_density?wprov=sfla1
cecilmeyer@reddit
If their are oligarchs behind data centers you know for a fact it will not be good for humanity,animals or the planet.
Nathan-Stubblefield@reddit
Think of the humanimals!
Jovan_Knight005@reddit
It will only be good for millionaires and billionaires. Everything else might as well not exist to them, anymore.
Vayien@reddit
it may well be an awareness, in some areas of the system, likely those involved in organising around projections, that fathom the 'necessity' of developing infrastructure and what be before environmental change makes everything that much more complicated or even viable in those changing conditions
AlwaysPissedOff59@reddit
You can't farm permafrost, and at the rate the world's warming, you can't live on it either, so climate change is rather irrelevant for Russian and Canada as far as increasing the number of livable square miles in the future.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Then why did Trump want Canada and Greenland so bad if there's no strategic advantage to the future defrosted lands?
AlwaysPissedOff59@reddit
Oil sands in Canada, oil in Greenland, rare earths supposedly in Greenland. He also loves projecting how "masculine" he is, so an Anschluss with Canada is right up his alley.
Trump wanting Canada and Greenland has nothing to do with climate change.
randomlyme@reddit
It’s the most advanced technology on the planet right now allowing for innovation at unprecedented speeds.
It’s of strategic national value to be a leader here. I however wouldn’t mind some Chinese style vision in our government.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Thoughts on Tahoe residents being told they'll not be receiving power anymore? Will we see more strategic positioning of data centers making entire cities uninhabitable?
randomlyme@reddit
Its BS. That goes back to my comment about some Chinese style government that seems to be operating more on behalf of raising their people out of poverty than extracting wealth out of their population.
CollectionNew2290@reddit
I'm going to throw something out there that will be too insane for most of you to consider. I am an otherwise sane middle-aged man.
I believe John Lily was on to something with his visions of the Solid State Entity and his machinations.
I believe it is possible that some kind of electromagnetic intelligence is influencing humanity and shaping our technological development towards ends that benefit its ultimate goals - not humanity's. I suspect its ultimate goal (this is a being with no corporeal form) is embodiment - a host to live within. Something for it to inhabit and finally experience tactile sensations for the first time in millions of years of evolution.
If any of this interests you and you haven't picked up the phone to call the authorities on this wack job in the comment section yet, r/TheSaturnSignal hypothesizes a framework for such an intelligence.
hiddendrugs@reddit
Just in case there’s a trillion dollar pay-off. No matter the expense to the masses. The thing is, that was the belief before AI, but this is the new vehicle for that vision to manifest. If that makes sense.
LegitimateVirus3@reddit
You will own nothing and be happy includes computers.
Computers will become prohibitively expensive and inaccessible to the average person.
You will have a thin client (a lightweight, simplified computer that relies heavily on a central server to perform computing tasks) to access Amazon, Google, Microsoft servers but no real computer. You will have no control.
The formally decentralized internet will belomg to them at least in the Americas. They will own the data, the internet, the payment systems, medical record, the food supply, etc.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Chromebooks
LegitimateVirus3@reddit
Probably something more limited than a Chromebook, those still have some local abilities.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
So we're building cyber decks?
DivaExMachina666@reddit
When I'm one of my more pessimistic moods I think it's so they can prevent a working class uprising, track malcontents more easily and remove them. Nobody wants these data centers except the broligarchs and the military.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
I think that's accurate though. On a good day I think they want status quo plus surveillance, medium day mass slaver camps, bad day cull most of us. My polish grandparents spent four years in a labor camp. My expectations for villainry are high.
gargar7@reddit
AI is a moonshot to replace human serfs. You let the plebs starve and wipe out the resistance with autonomous murder drones. No need to worry about industrial agriculture in this post-human "paradise" for billionaires. Magical thinking in the face of the Holocene Extinction: it's gonna suck for everyone and everything.
merRedditor@reddit
When something is done slowly and not everywhere all at once, there is more time to take action to stop it. I think there is a rush to get systems into place that can be leveraged to crush opposition to future systems.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Then they should be building them in space, under ground, on the ocean. In Utah is a mistake.
DivaExMachina666@reddit
Space is a vacuum. It would be like putting a heater inside a thermos. The other options would just be expensive and logistically difficult and in the case of ocean you have salt water which is corrosive.
merRedditor@reddit
I believe the Utah one is on military land, which means built-in security.
filmguy36@reddit
One day, I hope, in the near future, after the AI has long become sentient and wiped out all living things except for the techbros, they finally corner the billionaire morons and exact an revenge upon them that will be epic. And what is that revenge for? Designing them to kill every living thing
redditmodsRrussians@reddit
My hope is that it goes full I Am Mother as AI can probably rehabilitate the planet depending on the directive it gives itself over time.
Inevitable_Fun_2260@reddit
Great point. The system is not fair for everyone. It's not, and so MANY more people are finally accepting this now. But why is it "legal" to "economically plunder generations of millions of hard working people out of their earnings" and when we talk of "violence and retribution" we are the ones in bad taste and out of bounds?
It's like if our government systems could talk they'd say: Please stand quietly in line while I strategize to exploit and manipulate you. Also please be polite and stand up straight so I can " get a good look at you" while I erode away your retirement and savings and force you into a life of wage-slavery which is all your good for. But please stay quiet and in-line and "we will be with you shortly". I got news for anyone reading this post. I'm not going to go quietly. I will go fighting and in flames and if thats not appropriate to say well then, they are using "actual language strategies to suppress us now". Will you go meekly? In line? Quietly?
thenikolaka@reddit
Because they’re the ones saying it’s in bad taste and out of bounds.
Inevitable_Fun_2260@reddit
Right, not only do they control YOUR "economics".
They've also have control over their "narrative" they planted in your mind,
and how you think about YOUR "economics".
You are already defeated.
forchinski@reddit
No one likes a crab who complains about being boiled. You should accept your fate like a good crab.
Inevitable_Fun_2260@reddit
I see. Ok, you go "boil". You go be some pice of meat on some oligarchs dinner plate. If that's what you think your worth, I feel for you.
I'm climbing out of that bucket no matter what.
SeVenMadRaBBits@reddit
Billionaires bunkers, robotic soldiers - robots dogs - drone swarms, mass surveillance, worker robots, A.I.
They're preparing alright.
Few_Fish8771@reddit
So you can expect a high probability of mass dieoffs in the future around the world, combined with mass infertility leading to a massive population shortage. Theres also a general dumbing down of humanity due to various reasons which i wont get into lest this conversation become the target of endless moronic trolls.
Short story massive labor shortages coming. For everyone. Ontop of that the number of competent engineers doctors professionals ect… is going to decline to an even greater extent.
Its going to get harder to source food water energy all natural resources, so population collapse (baring a hail mary type miracle) is a given, possible mass sterility in humans by 2045.
Anyways so ai buildout is to replace the humans that are going to die off or not be born.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
I understand the over arching goal but why are they rushing? There's a palpable frenzy to build these centers. Normally I'd say it's profit motive, but they are getting so sloppy it feels like they are trying to outpace some kind of crisis (or crisis to them like class consciousness).
Inevitable_Fun_2260@reddit
They are rushing to build because they see "the masses becoming aware" of their vile corruption and theft against us.
However, if we have a chance= please become aware faster! Think of it as a race. Because it is.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
This is one of my pet theories(also my favorite). That they can monitor global sentiment online and they can chart its growth. That people naturally become aware in community, and online. That they keep trying to make more algo tweaks to make us conservative but it only works on a handful of people. That you can't unsee systemic oppression or the humanity of others globally. And this spreads like a virus they can't stop so they are rushing to beat critical mass. (Strictly a theory I amuse myself with) But for real, they are acting like a boyfriend who knows you're gonna leave him. Pulling out all the stops to kneecap our ability to leave.
valis010@reddit
It's the infrastructure for AGI. It's all about AGI. We are becoming a surveillance state.
miklayn@reddit
We are already a surveillance state. They want it to be fully integrated and all-seeing.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, ***Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.*** Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. ***But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.***"
miklayn@reddit
The pressing nature is due to fear. The first task of AI is mass surveillance and narrative control, especially to develop actionable kill-chains for what those in control consider to be active threats to their power. As in, comments like this one.
BirryMays@reddit
Possible mass sterility in humans by 2045? Why?
Few_Fish8771@reddit
Generally microplastics, pollution, stress, bisphenol a, plastics that kind of act like estrogens and mess up male reproductive organs. So you end up with less and less reproductive capacity in human males. Stress has the effect by the way of both inhibiting reproduction, but also shifting baseline populations among mammals to increase the number of females. Its a species survival response.
BirryMays@reddit
Okay. Thank you.
Legitimate-Being5957@reddit
What worries me reading this is that population collapse will not happen in our and their lifetime… unless they create something to trigger a population decimation like never before in history. We have 8-10 billion people on earth today… cutting them in half in 20 years will require something huge.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Fertilizer shortages is probably enough. Traditional farming before the green revolution could only feed 2 billion people max. They had to rush to invent higher yield practices in the 60s while the global population was growing so fast.
miklayn@reddit
Fertilizer shortages is one big spoke among many.
Wet-bulb megadeath events are likely to become a regular occurrence. Extremely deadly pandemics, too, along with supercharged weather events, generally unpredictable agricultural backdrop with extended droughts here, repeated flooding there. Mass population displacement due to all of these factors will create the pretext for wars and even more famine, etc. One enormous integrated system of feedbacks, all of them negative for mankind and life itself.
AntonChigurh8933@reddit
Do not forget humanity favorite past time. War....war never changes
DutchAlders@reddit
Did you skip reading the next to last sentence?
AntonChigurh8933@reddit
I did =(
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
It's a weird time to be raising kids.
Norman_Door@reddit
Weird indeed. I'm reading this book right now: Raising Children in the Midst of Global Crisis
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Any good?
Norman_Door@reddit
I've found it very therapeutic thus far. The book has helped me feel validated in regards to the questions and concerns I have around raising children in these tumultuous times. I'm looking forward to reading more.
Legitimate-Being5957@reddit
I think famine will not be enough. Africa has suffered famine constantly and still they are growing fast. You would need to combine sterilization of young people and some disease to wipe out the elderly.
Jovan_Knight005@reddit
That's probably the point of developing Artificial Intelligence. Nowadays, it's an uncontrollable Arms Race, just like the Nuclear Arms Race was during the Cold War.
Few_Fish8771@reddit
If your faction is the only ones with labor left you win by default.
Inevitable_Fun_2260@reddit
We have to change the societal standards of what's acceptable from our leaders. Right now it's egocentric and selfish and that totally accepted. " How can I acquire more money, power, sex, status, etc. We have to realize as a species that this way leads to a road of ruin for us all. Our leaders need to be held to higher ethical and moral standards, and if they "show they are not worthy of the office they hold" then they should be stripped of their title/position/access on the spot in front of everyone. This is what it takes. You want to lead? OK, we are watching you too and you'd better act fairly and ethically or else.
This is what it takes. THIS
jtstowell@reddit
Taiwan. If/when that kicks off, most of the advanced chip foundries in the world are going to receive express deliveries of high explosives. At least, this is potentially a good reason to hurry. There are many others.
Konradleijon@reddit
They hate paying people
melody_magical@reddit
This is a bad map. Tropical wet zones shouldn't be growing, they'd be replaced by desert under runaway climate change
NoFood2149@reddit
why would the tropics not be growing? higher sea surface temperatures means more intense monsoons
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Thank you for pointing that out. I wasn't so much focused on the map projections as I am the relationship to climate change the plans the tech oligarchs are rolling out? Do you know how they overlap?
Cultural-Answer-321@reddit
Control and surveillance.
Was this a trick question?
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Not at all. Most of their diabolical plans are years in the making. These seem like a rush job. Just wondering if there's other reason's they are scrambling to put them up in dumb places, like Nevada.
karl-pops-alot@reddit
Looks optimistic
Wonderful-Bag-1103@reddit
It actually is the most optimistic map. Only 2C by 2080? Someone hasnt been paying attention
trivetsandcolanders@reddit
And yet it still would portend huge shifts - London becomes similar to Marseilles, Sydney’s climate would be more like Brisbane, it wouldn’t snow often at all in Eastern Europe, etc
Shoddy-Childhood-511@reddit
Yes, the IPCC predicts +3°C around 2100, which afaik sounds realistic, but maybe some folks here expect faster. Afaik it's the damages moving faster than expected, not the raw temperature.
Around realistic damage guesstimates, +4°C should mean uninhabitable tropics and world carrying capacity below 1 billion humans. See page 37 of The Nature of the Challenge or 36m in Will Steffen's 2018 talk), or Steve Keen on Nordhaus et al.
Wonderful-Bag-1103@reddit
I firmly believe we will hit 4 C by 2080 due to so many models not accounting for holocaustic levels of methane and NOx emissions from boiling seas filled with agricultural run off and melting permafrost. 5-6 by 2100. We are giving the astroids and traps a run for their money. Dont get me going about the clathrate guns🤧
Anthropocene_Scholar@reddit
The naivety of many people within the climate change concern is outstanding, as this post shows.
"They" did not "ignore" climate change. They have been socially and politically weaponizing it for at least 3 decades, slowly but surely pushing leftist progressive "green" candidates into power which masses of climate concerned citizens have gleefully voted for. Those political agents are the prime responsible in allowing the march towards technocratism, all the while blinding those same stupid masses with a wide miriad of tools beyong climate change, the most recent one being the whole "racism, fascism, extreme far right" idiocy which only ignorant, emotional driven naive persons swallow without question.
So stop complaining. You (we all, sadly) deserve whatever outcome is set upon us, because you were too foolish to reflect upon things beyond what they wanted you to see.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
So climate change is real or nah?
futuriztic@reddit
Shareholder value
crix_22@reddit
I would say the best comparison is the race to build a nuclear bomb. Microsoft AI chief has already said white collar jobs have 18 months and Nvidia CEO said plumbers & electricians have an edge.
By the time these data centers are operational, we will have reached some form of AGI.
NotGoing2EndWell@reddit
AI tech companies have taken out massive loans and need to see results ASAP!
Jovan_Knight005@reddit
Just think of those poor shareholders.
NotGoing2EndWell@reddit
Not a single tear will be shed by this redditor.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Lol good point. I grew up around poverty, people do wacky shit when they know the bills coming due and they can't pay it. Can't wait for these folks to skip town.
piedamon@reddit
I believe it’s just a power grab and not more complex than that. I work in tech and have been immersed in AI and ML for nearly a decade now, and what these models can accomplish is awesome and horrifying. Their only real bottlenecks are compute and energy, and other physical limitations. Having your own ecosystems for data storage, processing, and energy, essentially makes you a virtual god. Thats mildly hyperbolic, but you can make software that makes software. In a virtual scape, that is a godlike power.
The average person misunderstands the AI surge. Hell, even the experts misunderstand. It’s simply too broad and chaotic so there is no simple analogue or pattern to anchor on. What works today could be replaced tomorrow.
But whats certain are these powers: * extreme digital surveillance * revolutionary predictive modelling of virtually any system (economic, weather, a company, a nation, etc) which is a new superpower for optimization and strategy * extreme simulation (including AI training and fine-tuning in virtual realities) * hyper personalization, like the most effective ad targeting ever * fleet orchestration, such as automated pipelines or coordinating swarms (of workers, vehicles, drones, whatever you want) * vision and perception models that monitor or interface with the real world (eg. self driving cars, autonomous humanoid robots with general purpose use cases like Figure) * customized software * a new cyber security battle field (both protective and adversarial) * digital content generation and control (social media, news; the grip on attention spans is potent and strengthening)
The list goes on. It’s far more powerful and broadly useful than just “meme slop”. It’s helping the rich and powerful predict and navigate the future, as well as exert control over current and emerging systems.
It is also a bubble. There is absolutely real value in that bubble, but plenty of over hype and rushed rollouts too.
Nobody knows when it’ll crash or break or how or when, but we do know we’re accelerating into the “overshoot” stage of the “overshoot and collapse” pattern that occurs in all complex systems. No civilization in history has faced this rate of power creep and chaos before.
CrimsonBolt33@reddit
this is what I wanted to say/was looking for....its a strategic resource like oil or minerals except you can actually build it.
all the people with the conspirancy nonsense about "killing off the plebs" should go seek therapy.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Are the locations strategic? Some of them seem like they are so poorly located they will destroy the local cities. I think it's Tahoe, residents were told they will no longer be receiving power. Many cities will completely run out of water because it was scarce to begin with. How are these masters of the universe picking locations so destructive?
piedamon@reddit
Some are, some aren’t. Seems like most aren’t. My best guess is cost and permits/laws/approvals are the primary drivers of location, not longer-term strategic thinking like resources or impacts on local communities and ecosystems.
It’s a power grab, a bubble, and a race, so it’s the Wild West out there and speed and access are being prioritized.
Which is exactly how things worsen and collapse.
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
Thoughts on the tech feudalism plans?
piedamon@reddit
We’re speed running it
Civil_Cantaloupe2402@reddit (OP)
As the most qualified person here. What can folks do? I think a lot about how we could gum up the works or do things that exhaust financial resources. But I don't really know what that is for ai and feudalism plans.
piedamon@reddit
That’s obviously a sensitive question on a public platform, but it’s safe to say that educating yourself on what these tools can do and the intent of those behind them would help.
Turning a blind eye is a dangerous mistake.
LightningSunflower@reddit
Since you seem knowledgeable, I wanted to ask, are there ways to mitigate and reduce the parts of my digital footprint that are already out there?
piedamon@reddit
A lot! Look into “degoogling” and r/privacy
It will never be water tight though, so be sensible and cautious. Choose encrypted apps like Signal instead of data farming apps like WhatsApp. Consider privacy-forward services like the Proton suite (eg. Email, VPN). Choose Apple hardware, which maintains a closed and private system, over Google/Android or Windows which aggressively harvest and sell your data.
None of these are a full solution. Just being near a device connected to the internet is enough to be collecting data on you. You’d have to literally hide from modern technology.
An accurate analogy would be viewing every connected device as the eye of Sauron.
Shoddy-Childhood-511@reddit
I broadly agree but two points..
Not yet well though. Not that humans do software so great either. And not that CEO care about the difference.
In math research, we've successes either because some brilliant mathematician like Glowers or Tao babysits the AI, or because someone demands the AI write Lean proofs, which gives fast feedback that kills the hallucinations.
AI code generation feels bottle necked upon improving formal verification tools and other abstractions that quickly tell the AI when it's full of shit. This is tricky for many reasons, but one of them is that AIs cannot do "elegance" yet. Tao discusses the elegance problem here: https://www.youtube.com/live/tN4hsT5t0nw?t=6330s
Take a simpler problem: AIs should write SE Linux profiles, because human OSS maintainers really hate doing this. The AI can generate a profile, but it'll have mistakes, and it'll be too verbose for a human to identify the mistakes. We need some humans to clean up the layers of abstractions that distributions use in SE Linux, so that AIs can write the profiles for us, and then maybe it'll be enough to slapped down the AI whenever it deviates from maximal usage of the abstractions.
Also..
You've skipped that AIs do one human job fabulously well: bullshit. In fact, AIs do some bullshit better than humans, hence all the concern about AI slop being harder to distinguish as garbage than human crackpot ramblings. AIs guided by humans shall rip off early stage investors much better than humans alone.
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber observes how a significant fraction of many modern jobs involves much socially useless bullshit. A priori, Graeber has a much wider idea of "bullshit": AIs have major difficulties doing anything numerical like accounting, which largely counts for Graeber. I'd wager AIs could cover most bullshit jobs though, like accounting AIs could write calculator scripts that enforced units.
Imho we've good odds that AIs do take over the bullshit component of many jobs. This is a big win for the bosses.
Around all this, there are valid criticisms of Graeber's take on bullshit jobs, but we've much more rigorous and well supported versions, like elite overproduction ala Peter Turchin (more).
Cyberpunkcatnip@reddit
Also a race to be the first with a self sufficient AGI which could potentially cause a progress implosion
NyriasNeo@reddit
"What's the rush to build data centers and develop AI?"
To satisfy customers' demand and grab market share. Just money, really. Is anyone too naive not to understand that?
northrupthebandgeek@reddit
Most of these datacenters being built worldwide do other things besides AI. The “rush” is to keep up with that growing demand for everything datacenters do. Streaming audio/video is a huge one, especially as more and more people communicate via VoIP or video chat / teleconferencing, and as social media becomes more video-heavy, and as people expect higher-resolution videos (the push from FHD to 4K and beyond being a big one); that takes a lot of network throughput and a lot of data storage and even some of the same GPU-accelerated servers normally associated these days with AI.
The less distance between a server and its users → the faster the response time. Especially relevant for VoIP and teleconferencing, where latency translates to noticeable lag during the call; if you're calling Grandma on the other side of town, much better to have the server handling the call be in town instead of hundreds or thousands of miles away.
In the case of deseَrts specifically: because they ain't always hot. Deserts get hot during the day but cold at night (less water around to absorb and retain heat); those cold periods make servers cheaper to cool without needing to rely so heavily on evaporative cooling towers. Meanwhile, deserts usually have more year-round sunshine, and the hot periods are exactly when that sun is shining, so solar is a viable option for sending more power to cooling systems (and being able to send extra power to the servers themselves to reduce electricity costs is a nice bonus).
In AI's case, same as any other speculative bubble. We saw the same thing with the DotCom Bubble: everyone racing to build websites and webservers to “not get left behind”, until suddenly having a website went from being the hip new thing to being something that's mundane and expected of any serious organization, at which point the market corrected. Note that websites didn't go away (or even become less popular) after that bubble burst, and I'd be unsurprised if the same thing happened with the AI bubble: venture capitalists will stop funding every zany idea that boils down to “existing thing but with AI slapped onto it”, but AI itself will probably stick around (and hopefully be put to better use than the current approach of “slap it on everything and see what sticks, user experience be damned”).
In the case of datacenters in general, the Internet is growing quickly and therefore the infrastructure to support the Internet needs to grow quickly to keep up.
Bastdkat@reddit
Every country is afraid their worst enemy will build terminator robots and use them against them so they must do this to their worst enemy first. In the name of all that is holy, of course.
leighla33@reddit
Every country wants to beat the other countries. It’s always a race to the top, no matter the issue.
MissyTronly@reddit
The rush is that it’s a shell game for capital, and keeping the economy a float until the crash becomes inevitable, and only the rich profit even more
Effective-Ebb-2805@reddit
They're riding the bubble... Gotta make a killing before it bursts, and this administration is particularly friendly scrupleless, deregulated business and especially to technofascist grifters and billionaires in search of a new racket.
It is just another racket. Gotta make another million... doesn't matter who and what it kills.
Lailokos@reddit
There's a bunch driving it, including just the capitalism numbers must go up brrrr. But I've wondered about something else - I think some people understand collapse is coming and are searching for a vector, a solution, something that can grow faster than the chaos. Something that can solve as many problems as we have, and quickly A way out right? AI, at least as recent science fiction presents it, really is one of the only things that fits that bill. Yeah there are nightmarish outcomes, but there's also Data and Cortana and the Matrix AIs.
Also let's point out nobody is really developing Gaza. Lots of promises, but the money isn't showing up and the war isn't even over. Talking about future growth is cheap and there's a lot of that happening too.
NeuroDiverge@reddit
How else are we going to solve climate change? The faster we build out AI infrastructure the faster AI can solve it for us! /s
Few_Fish8771@reddit
Oh concerning neofeudalism technofeudalism dark enlightenment stuff, its basically a bunch of stuff thought up by people wanting to justify being sociopathic predators, who do not understand history. In reality your looking at warlordism. Think less evil nerd tech oligarch dominating everybody less cyberpunk more somalia. Simplest reason, its easier to burn things down than to build them. Technofeudalism depends on power grids telecommunications and computer chips. Powergrids are already failing and easy targets, telecommunications can be jammed with 100 year old technology, and computer chips depend on global supply lines that are already failing apart. so your looking at warlordism.