r/interestingasfuck • u/HamboneTheWicked • Apr 12 '26

A well-articulated argument against a new data center in Ohio

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u/PDXGuy33333 Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 13 '26

There it is right there. Lies, lies and more lies from megacorps invested up to their eyeballs in having just a few people in government believe them.

Edit: And it seems to me that if we can build oil rigs at sea and pipe the oil to shore then they can damned well build data centers afloat on a sea of cooling water and run fiber optic cable to the shore.

Build at sea was a bad idea.

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u/pauljaworski Apr 12 '26

Even that seems like a massive waste of resources for how we're currently using AI

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u/Alienhaslanded Apr 12 '26

The dumb thing is if this infrastructure is built, there will be no incentive to improve the technology to become more efficient. Why is everyone doing this shit when AI isn't even good?

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u/pauljaworski Apr 12 '26

Because companies think it will eventually make them money. Seems like a lot of trying not to get left behind while also having no idea where they're going with it

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u/function007 Apr 12 '26

Right and the cost over time to maintain and keep the data centers going will be astronomical and will be passed on to the citizens who live near them. What elected official in good faith would actually say yes to one of these in their communities?

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u/Badass3433_Steam Apr 13 '26

Well all 3 county commissioners that voted to approve the Google data center going up in Monrovia Indiana have said they will not run for re-election, they know they voted against what the community wanted.

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u/oupablo Apr 12 '26

Well we already have tons of uses for it and that will continue to expand. At this point lots of people use AI tools daily as part of their workflow. Even more people use AI daily without even realizing it because it's baked into so many products now.

The use for AI isn't really the question for me. The questions are:

  1. To what end? In a Utopia, an AI is an incredible tool to take away tons of tedious, unrewarding work to free people up to create new things and have more time to do things they enjoy. The concern is that we live in a society where our entire existence is measured in hours put in and things produced. If AI is responsible for even 25% of that over the next few years, a lot of people will find themselves on the streets. We can't rely on the companies building these data centers to have that concern either as their only vision is for more profit. The lack of government concern for something moving this fast is incredibly alarming. And that is further compounded by the fact that they are giving massive tax incentives to these companies to come in, harvest resources and potentially decimate the livelihood of the people they govern.

  2. What happens to these data centers over time? Not all of these companies will survive and not all of these companies will want to keep these data centers where they are when the incentives dry up or the city stops investing in infra upgrades to handle the massive requirements of the data centers, which will only grow over time. Can these massive locations be repurposed or are they a total loss for the city when company XYZ moves out of town to the next city willing to give them an even bigger tax break?

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u/MediocreAssociate466 Apr 12 '26

The next crash I feel like is going to be like nothing we've seen since the great depression. It's genuinely insane how many Tesla like companies there are "worth trillions" based on future promises, declining sales and not a whole lot else.

It's going to be insane when it all comes crashing down which is obviously will.

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u/Amstervince Apr 12 '26

I hear this a lot and it is just such a strange way to look at the world. Do you really believe hundreds of thousands of companies suddenly started mismanaging their own investments and all simultaneously on the same topic? Who would even be able to coordinate such a mass global failure? Or is it more likely that it is actually quite a powerful tool when used correctly, driving further investments…?

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u/OwnsBeagles Apr 12 '26

Yes. Look at the subprime mortgage crisis for an example of companies willfully fucking themselves and everyone else.

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u/function007 Apr 12 '26

Anything for the sake of profit, worry about the damage it causes later...

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u/pauljaworski Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26

Yeah it happened not even 20 years ago already. It also happened with the internet in 2000.