cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/54061344
https://archive.ph/2026.11.05-224738/https://www.ft.com/content/32fd4450-5880-437d-9bd9-df13289ada24
The US midterm elections — in which voters elected anti-data centre governors in Texas, Georgia and Ohio and passed 38 local votes in favour of restrictions on their development — have forced the tech industry to reflect on its failure to connect with the public.
“The reason is not that people are Luddites . . . it’s much like the protests against the masks in Covid. It has become a political symbol,” said Vik Bajaj, co-chief executive of the Jeff Bezos-backed AI start-up Prometheus.
. . . “As a profession, we have spent two years pretty dangerously telling people that AI will change the future of work for the worse — that they will be out of jobs, that their children will be out of jobs, their grandchildren will live in a world that’s unrecognisable. And then for the last year or so, we’ve also been flirting with the idea that it’s an existential crisis.”
“I think this election was a big wake-up call . . . to take a pause and think about what’s happening and approach this in a way that’s maybe a little more thoughtful,” said John Hanke, founder of Niantic Spatial, the AI world model company and gaming group that made Pokémon Go. “It’s been go, go, go, build, build, build, and some of that has been . . . with head buried in sand.”
“Won’t somebody think of the poor billionaires?!”
Seems to be good-news-friday
I mean, these tech CEOs went to college graduation ceremonies and said “None of you will be getting jobs, lol” and went on TV and said “AI will destroy humanity” and then ramped their data center expansion so rapidly that peoples electric bill went up by 300% and when the public hates them and their technology and votes accordingly they are “What happened? How can people be so short-sighted? Why is this so political?”
I dunno, fuckheads, maybe move fast and break things isn’t a popular strategy when applied to society.
It’s not the danger that pisses me off. That’s manageable with good regulation and enforcement. It’s their insistence that I have to embrace this technology or else forgo the technologies and services that I regularly use that I object to!
Google used to be awesome. Now search is a garbage fire that barely works. Texting on my phone used to predict typed words based on my frequently used words, now it offers words that I almost never use! I can’t even use Google Assistant any longer without signing up for Gemini.
Nvidia used to sell graphics card to consumers and those cards were affordable. Now even ten year old refurbished cards are getting more expensive and harder to find.
Most other tech companies suck in much the same way. Used to be great (or at least pretty good)… Went all-in on AI… Now it sucks giant donkey balls AND the product or service is more expensive than ever! Fuck me right?!
The capabilities of AI are indeed impressive, but not everyone needs it and most people like me don’t want it. And I, for one, am absolutely not willing to pay for any AI services period!
And let’s not forget the environmental disaster the data centers have turned out to be!
I hope the entire AI industry dies in a fire!
I hope that this means thoughtful conversations about how much AI compute infrastructure is actually useful given realistic demand curves, where it should be located, what resources will it require, and, importantly, how the companies that benefit from it will directly share those benefits, as compared to hazy gestures towards “economic development”.
I fear that this is just the industry telling us they’re about to start lying even more than they have.
And once again, all tech leaders give a shit about his money. They’re willing to destroy the planet, eat up all the energy, pollute all the water, it doesn’t matter, as long as they can make their fucking money.
We went from 0 data centers to 3 under construction in the last couple years. I hope they abandon the projects and let wildlife have the land back.
Good.
Think about poor defenseless data centers!
Oh no…
Anyway, how’s this Friday going for everyone?
The half finished, already in debt AI centers, offering services that the public is widely unwilling to pay for?
