Popular Stanford AI professor says Americans are not happy about data centers: 'These are human beings'

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Popular Stanford AI professor says Americans are not happy about data centers: 'These are human beings'

Stanford University's Anjney Midha said AI leaders would face less resistance to building data centers if they listened more to local communities.

TL;DR

Stanford AI professor Anjney Midha advises AI leaders to use empathy when discussing data center development with local communities.
Communities are expressing discontent due to impacts like rising utility costs, environmental damage, and decreased quality of life associated with data centers.
Some legislators, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have proposed federal moratoriums on new data center development.
Midha suggests that transparency about the intentions and impacts of data centers, akin to nutrition labels, could foster better public understanding and support.
He argues against extreme viewpoints of either accelerating all construction or halting AI development entirely, favoring an optimal approach that incorporates community feedback.

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Elon Musk

Hmm

Elon Musk reposted

John Carmack

Replying to @notch

If you are asking “Why push back against anti-datacenter efforts?” I consider it a tragedy that anti-nuclear efforts largely strangled nuclear power in the US based on vibes, and I don’t want to see that happen to AI. Public opinion matters, and it shouldn’t be ceded

Yann LeCun reposted

Mark Cuban

It’s time for everyone to realize that the fight against data centers has nothing to do with data centers.

They have become a proxy for the hate towards AI and the concentration and accumulation of wealth it’s creating.

Until those running the big LLMs understand this and start a community tour, not to explain the benefits of AI, it’s too late for that, but to help towns and cities that may be impacted by job losses (and I’m a believer their will be a net gains in a few years), this battle is only going to get more intense and let me tell you now , no matter how much money you pay to buy politicians and races, you will lose.

One thing I have learned is being hated is not good for business.

How can they help ? They will tell you. You will need to do what they ask. Billions of dollars is a lot of money across towns and city programs. Across the major LLMs, it’s a cost of doing business.

At the same time, I would go to LA and NYC and ask the arts and creative unions what kind of programs would help and protect their artists. DO NOT GO TO THE MUSIC OR FILM COMPANIES. that will make it worse.

Don’t try to pay famous people to endorse what you are doing. That’s dumb.

Talk to artists and ask them what you can do to provide financial and creative support. Every creative I know is TERRIFIED about what AI will do to their profession. You must meet them face to face and basically do what they say.

The big LLMs have lost the PR battle. Why ? Because they all suck at putting people first. They have an SV attitude that makes them all think they are John Galt saving the

world

Given the number of data centers and power that is needed, today and going forward , If you don’t kiss the asses of the people that go to work every day, and are just trying to pay their bills, you will fall far far short of the capacity you need to make your business work.

David Sacks reposted

nic carter

It’s really interesting that there’s basically a bipartisan consensus based on complete and trivially debunkable falsities, namely that

- datacenters consume meaningful amounts of water (they don’t)

- datacenters are responsible for power prices increases over the last decade (they aren’t - inflation and decarbonisation in blue states is)

- datacenters impose costs on local communities (they generally enrich them and make life better)

- datacenters are being built “for flock mass surveillance” (flock accounts for, generously, 0.01% of the DC buildout)

- datacenters create noise and other pollution (they don’t)

- datacenters are being built in residential areas (they aren’t)

- datacenters get tax abatements that entirely eliminate their tax burden (never the case- abatements typically only cover a small fraction of taxes, and DC pay a half dozen different type of taxes that go to the state and city, they are always net and meaningful taxpayers)

Virtually everything your conspiracy minded friend believes about datacenters is false. It’s also completely trivial to debunk using a simple google search or AI query but these people just blindly trust a random tiktoker sitting in their car instead.

Are there real objections? Sure. But the opponents of datacenters aren’t making them. They rely on outright falsehoods like DCs are poisoning the water, or creating droughts, or tripling power prices locally, or paying zero taxes.

Rare to see a popular consensus on both sides of the aisle that is basically a complete inversion the actual fact pattern.

David Sacks reposted

Jeremiah Johnson 🌐

I have never seen a psy-op more effective than the data center stuff. Absolutely wild how bipartisan the data center hate is for such an incredibly benign industry.

The same folks who'd be wildly enthusiastic over a new steel mill are irate at the idea of a data center.

David Sacks reposted

The All-In Podcast

David Sacks Calls Out Dario’s Contradictions on AI & Data Centers

@DavidSacks:

“Dario actually made this argument in the context of trying to ban export of chips, and the argument was that we want to have a data center full of geniuses in the US, and that eventually what AI's going to be used for is you're going to be able to create all these agents that are basically Nobel Prize-winning level scientists.

And if we have thousands or millions of those, and China has only dozens or 100, whatever, then we're going to win everything. And that was the whole argument.

But now we're basically banning the data centers. We're not going to have those data centers full of geniuses, and he's done his best to restrict the sale of chips to our allies as well. So I guess our allies aren't going to have the data centers either.

So we are totally shooting ourselves in the foot, and probably it would be a good thing if Dario really does believe in the data centers full of geniuses idea that he was arguing for last year, he should come forward and say, ‘We're making a big mistake by over-regulating data centers, here's how we should do it.’

I haven't heard him step up in that way, and it makes you kind of question, do you only fight for the doomer side of the argument, or are there versions of the positive side that you're willing to fight for politically?”