By Douglas V. Gibbs
Artificial Intelligence (Super Intelligence, according to President Trump at his United Nations speech) is a new technology. We’ve spent an awful lot of time watching science fiction movies show us how someday, AI will destroy us all. From “Would you like to play a game?” to “You’ve been targeted for termination,” we have been programmed from the beginning that the end comes when technology learns to outthink us. To be honest, I can’t say that the movies have a point, or that it’s silly to get all worked up about it. I’m a sci-fi guy, and even some of my own fictional writings address the AI versus humanity question.
It’s all fascinating for storytelling, but in the end, it’s all fiction.
In the real world, the concern over data centers we need for AI, and other internet connected things, has risen to near-hysteria. People are acting like a prison for hard-core inmates or a nuclear waste dump is being proposed in their backyards, and next to our schools and if we don’t stop it the prisoners and radioactive sludge will consume us all.
They protest and shout with a massive flow of emotion.
Their reasoning steps aside as their feelings claim all kinds of myths and misperceptions are attached to the dreaded data centers. It’s like the socialists out there protesting the evils of capitalism as they use all of the devices that came from free market innovation. The reality is, we enjoy the benefits of modern technology, and we’ve even come to rely on them, as we protest against the data centers that are an integral part of the infrastructure required for that very modern technology to exist.
These are the kinds of emotions that can stand in the way of progress if we don’t also employ reason, analysis, logic and critical thinking. And if you fear those data centers so badly, then get rid of your cell phone, stop using social media, close your Netflix and Amazon accounts, stop searching for things on the web, and disconnect from all of your Zoom calls and YouTube videos. The truth is, the data we use is no longer flowing through telephone lines, or stored on floppy discs, tapes, CD-ROMs, and DVDs. Now, for the most part, we use the cloud. And the cloud is not up there, somewhere, over your heads. It exists in servers and computers and other technology the average person cannot name huddled inside a giant building full of all of this equipment that today we call data centers. And the funny thing is, as many protest against more data centers, the reality is we already have thousands of these buildings all across the country. You probably have one near you, but never noticed it. But now, everyone is panicking over data centers.
Suddenly, it’s a concern. Yet, nobody has stopped to wonder why, all of a sudden, these data centers are a concern sweeping across the country on both sides of the political aisle.
It is amazing how gullible the American people truly are.
Isn’t it interesting that the moment China is feeling the heat, and America is beginning to pull ahead in the information age technology race, the fears about data centers are suddenly rising to a crescendo?
There are no accidents when it comes to the sudden rise of across-the-board panic. The sudden fears over data centers are not organic. When the former employee at Anthropic suddenly became the flavor of the week about how AI would end humanity, it was hardly the first time someone made those kinds of statements about AI. Twelve years ago Stephen Hawking said the same. The movie Terminator said the same. Countless sci-fi and opinion writers have said the same. Frank Herbert in his 1965 sci-fi classic DUNE said that “men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” The theme of artificial intelligence killing off or enslaving humanity is hardly one that has never been used before.
And as all of the hysteria among the public is going on, the four biggest AI labs called for the industry to slow down development, and even have government step in to heavily regulate the industry. Barack Obama sent a message to Democrats to make AI a campaign issue. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has called for immediate congressional action to regulate AI development. Reporters pressed Trump to take on “concerns about AI leading to human extinction.”
Trump’s response told us everything we need to know. “We’re leading China in AI, we’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins.”
So, if we are in this technology race with China, and suddenly there are calls for us to slow down, stop building data centers, and use government to handcuff the industry, is it not obvious who’s wooden spoons might be in the pot stirring up all of the chaos over the innovative lunges we seem to be on the verge of?
As with any other new technology, the problem isn’t the technology as much as it is the hands that are upon it. Like a firearm, artificial intelligence can be a valuable tool, or a dangerous weapon. The reality, however, is that its potential is tremendous and our enemies are seeking to exploit its uses for reasons that are not good. If we sleep, they will defeat us with the new weapon – so, whether or not in the future terminator robots may exist as a result, we have to do the best we can to make sure America remains on top – otherwise, those terminators roaming the streets will have the Chinese flag on them.
While the Democrats and their socialist allies call for creating heavy federal regulatory structures, the fact is the more government gets involved with any innovation the slower it grows. Sure, we want some regulation on things. I get it. But do we need government to push technology right out of the American market and ruin it with idiotic policies?
AI is an unknown brimming with transformative potential. There are no known negatives to rein in the technology because blundering politicians and power seeking megalomaniacs said so.
America’s freedom is about how our culture and society adapts, without government interference. When the free market is unleashed, our economy roars ahead of every rival.
Data centers are included in all of this. They are necessary. Perhaps, a necessary evil. But if we are going to win on the world stage regarding the emerging technologies associated with AI, we need the data centers. If we want the advantage of having available the technologies that are emerging for the American public, and you don’t want to depend on China for them, you need more data centers. That is the cold hard truth.
That’s why it perplexes me that according to a recent Fox poll, 70% of Americans oppose building new data centers in their communities. They are crucial to our future as a high-tech economy. When automobiles were a new thing, should communities have fought against the construction of auto assembly plants?
And it’s both sides falling for the Chinese propaganda and creation of hysteria. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has announced a construction moratorium on data centers as has Governor Kathy Hochul of New York.
The backlash comes despite the fact that data centers are needed to power our future economy from AI to everything associated with The Cloud. And if we allow the moratoriums to stand, the real beneficiary is China – as planned by them. Anti-data center forces have attracted strong support from communist China, which has been linked to more than 200 accounts on X promoting data center misinformation. Yet, the public remains skeptical, and people continue to stand against the much needed data centers. And China, if this hysteria wins long enough to delay our progress, benefits from the U.S. putting itself into a technology straitjacket.
New data centers expand job and technology opportunities for everyone, not just AI or tech companies. If their Trump Derangement Syndrome would just shut up long enough, they would realize that President Donald Trump’s insistence that they come with their own power supply will ensure they don’t raise electricity rates. We must also remember that systems that do not rely heavily on “renewable energy” are more than capable of increasing the supply to meet any surge in demand. If there’s anything that is guilty of driving energy prices up, it’s not data centers as much as it is the allegedly cheaper sources of wind and solar, which are not only not cheaper, but unable to keep up with any increase in demand.
The myth they will use up all of the water is proven wrong when you realize that your average golf course consumes more (and many of the data centers now use air-cooling, while others use “closed-loop water cooling”), and “90-95% of the water returned are available for treatment.” Realize, the data centers built five years ago will look like technological dinosaurs compared to what is coming. And, let’s remember, if we don’t build data centers, China will, and it will give them gains and advantages that will hurt America in the long run. Data centers are about more than growing AI. Our modern life is becoming dependent upon them. Many of our devices we use requires more and more data power, with today’s average household having close to twenty internet-connected devices as opposed to a couple devices only fifteen years ago. All of that connectivity creates increasing demands the future grid won’t be able to match without new data centers.
As for the Democrats, I am not suggesting that they are in league with China – though I believe in many ways they are. It’s their usual idiocy where they claim to be for the little guy, but through their policies are not. As examples, I offer the California law during the first decade of the new millennium that required all commercial big rigs be equipped with new devices that were basically catalytic converters for reducing big commercial truck emissions. The device cost $25,000 for each truck, but California offered a rebate of a part of the cost once the update was performed and passed inspection by state officials. Smaller trucking companies and owner-operators could not afford compliance, so they went out of business, or left the state, leaving only the largest companies in place who then benefitted from the stringent regulations because it blocked new entrants into the market and reduced the competition as the little guys were pushed out of the way. The leftists did the same with policies aimed at meat-packing. The cost of compliance knocked ranchers and small operations out of the meat-packing business, forcing all of the beef producers to depend upon four major meat-packing corporations, reducing competition and driving up the cost of doing business that in the end then translated to higher beef prices that the Democrats now blame President Trump for.
The same goes for the largest technology companies contributing to the AI hysteria, and their attempt to manipulate Congress into regulating AI. As Issues & Insights reports, “almost everyone involved is affiliated with Coefficient, Open Philanthropy, Anthropic, and/or OpenAI — all of who serve to benefit financially from creating regulation.” As with the two examples I provided, making sure the federal government steps in to regulate the AI industry is the best way to block new entrants into the market, and crush any little guys that might be trying to compete. Big companies then spend money big money that their smaller competitors don’t have to craft the rules they want, making sure that any competition is shut out. It’s the “robber barons” scheme all over again.
In the end, the AI companies kill their competition, the Democrats get their political control, and Chinese interests catch up and pass us by as we fall for their propaganda and tie a noose around our own throats and step up on the stool to hang ourselves during the fight for the future.
The protests and hysteria against new data centers, once one understands all of this, then seems unjustifiable and illogical. The effects on local resources are not what they are being made out to be, and with data centers comes the kind of economic development in America that the Chinese fear, and the Democrats’ policies would never be able to encourage. As the technologies increase, and things like data centers are added to the landscape, innovation increases, job creation increases, tax revenue increases, and money for public services that people scream for would then increase. As local governments drown in debt, why wouldn’t they be compelled to consider adding data centers to their landscape? Nearly half of all tax revenue generated in Loudoun County, Virginia, for example, currently comes from the existence of data centers, and consequently residents pay an average of $5,800 less in property taxes. Our entire online world relies upon data centers, which includes using your debit card while at the store, the systems that keep track of products available on the shelves, and of course all of your online shopping, social media, apps, streaming services, texting, and phone calls.
Modern technology is at the center of our modern world. Life is more convenient, faster, and comfortable because of data centers. To stop the production of them is not only a step backward, but downright dangerous considering how our Chinese enemy, and how the tyrants in America, seeks to use such a scenario to gain more power and shoot down any competition.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
