'A data center should not be a potential death sentence for a community’s health.'

politics

'A data center should not be a potential death sentence for a community’s health.'

The NAACP is suing xAI to block Elon Musk’s Colossus 2 data center project outside of Memphis, TN, claiming that the project is operating 27 gas turbines without an air permit and in violation of the Clean Air Act.

TL;DR

The NAACP is suing xAI to block the Colossus 2 data center project outside Memphis, TN.
The lawsuit alleges the project is operating 27 gas turbines without an air permit.
This operation is claimed to be in violation of the Clean Air Act.
NAACP states that companies often ask Black and frontline communities to bear the toxic consequences of 'innovation'.

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Yann LeCun reposted

Aleph

I just learned that the "data centers are using our water!" bullshit started because of a book called Empire of AI by Karen Hao in which she totally fucks up the math when determining how much water they use, an error she later acknowledged https://t.co/Ea6HSpjr8X

Yann LeCun reposted

Sean Frank

I don’t know why data centers have become this generations nuclear power.

Unlike nuclear power, there is a 0% chance that a data center can lead to any sort of disaster scenario.

This project in Utah is:

- in an uninhabited area

- bought and repurposed water already in use

- is bringing its own power, so it won’t cost citizens anything

It’s like being against building a nuclear power plant in the middle of Nevada, except there is no radioactive waste. No fall out. No risk of anything.

It’s a big computer in the middle of nowhere, that is self sufficient in all resources.

There are a million real problems in America.

Data centers just aren’t one.

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

David Sacks reposted

Billy Binion

Fascinating. Some data centers came to a struggling town in Washington state. Did it run out of water? Was the community destroyed?

Let’s see. The town…built a new high school, hospital, library, sewage systems, and police & fire stations. Poverty fell from 29% to 6%.

Oh. https://t.co/BDyDWqUUWt

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.