Comment by _23sd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _23sd | Hacker News Reader

I have several friends who used to lament the loss of manufacturing jobs as a ticket to the middle class, but now say they're going to protest a proposed data center, which feels a bit ironic. None really link it to AI's social impact like Gizmodo does here, the argument always starts with "I don't understand what they need a data center for" (often genuinely wanting me to explain it since I work with computers) and then goes into noise, water use, or loss of farmland. I'd probably not want to live near the noise pollution of a data center or any other kind of noisy industry either, so their views aren't incomprehensible or anything (though the farmland one makes zero sense to me), but it does seem like an instance of the revealed preference that many Americans are just deeply skeptical of anything more intensive than an Amazon warehouse going on in their area, even if they enjoy a fantasy version of the country where (usually other) people have a nice union job in a widget factory. It's good to remember when political extremists try to claim there's some easy fix that will make America an industrial powerhouse again; in reality, most of us don't want anything close to that.

I think locals (unlike economists apparently) are also thinking what is produced in particular in those facilities.

Yes, a chip fab might in fact be more of an environmental hazard, but at least the benefits of the products are clear.

I think this even used to be true with data centers before AI: It's sort of easy to see the need for one if you're hosting your own website in one or at least understand a bit more how the internet works.

The problem with AI is that both the product and its production now have a negative reputation.

Why should people tolerate the downsides of a factory if its only product is actively causing job losses, mental health problems and large-scale cognitive decline?

Datacenters don't create jobs and drain local resources.

It takes a couple dozen people to fully staff a datacenter. That's literally a rounding error in employment statistics.

Framing it as an argument against American manufacturing or jobs is complete nonsense.

> Datacenters don't create jobs and drain local resources.

Recap

    DATACENTERS DON'T CREATE JOBS

    DATACENTERS DRAIN LOCAL RESOURCES

    DATACENTERS DRIVE UP PRICES Of CRITICAL COMPONENTS 5-FOLD

    [there are countless more lines but you get the idea]

Datacenters are the greatest epic tragedy since car culture/trespassing culture mass-murdered childhood.

>Framing it as an argument against American manufacturing or jobs is complete nonsense.

It is a strong argument against those things in at least three ways: (1) if you want to mandate that high tech manufacturing come back to America (e.g. "just make iPhones here" which seems to be a common sentiment in my circles), it would be foolish to suppress an industry creating insatiable demand for high tech components and ensuring that it goes offshore at a time when other countries are also trying to build more local manufacturing. To say nothing of components and construction materials that are already manufactured here. (2) there are very few types of industry that would create less local environmental impact than a data center, no chance if you think data centers use too much water you'd be okay with the toxic chemicals that chip fabs work with. (3) since America is a high wage country with a lot of R&D strength, any factories we build are naturally going to be much more automated than they are in low wage countries. Being against entire industries because individual facilities don't create enough jobs would probably be quite limiting in the types of manufacturing you'd approve of as well.

How are data centers creating manufacturing jobs?

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