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Comment by moate | Hacker News Reader

I'm friends with a lot of creatives and artists. We all genuinely hate the plagiarism machine because 1- it's a plagiarism machine 2- it's killing creative jobs 3- it makes bad "art" and 4- it's killing jobs.

I don't think people need to be convinced that "this job-stealing robot that makes trash and accelerates climate destruction faster than the internet was already doing" by hit pieces, plenty of us are just proud Luddites (now if you want to talk about hit pieces, that's a movement that got decimated by bad PR)

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> We all genuinely hate the plagiarism machine because 1- it's a plagiarism machine 2- it's killing creative jobs 3- it makes bad "art" and 4- it's killing jobs.

Three of these are what I said to begin with (people consume the AI output instead of patronizing the source) and the fourth is that the quality of the output sucks, which is the part they're actually improving over time -- but that's going to make the first problem worse.

> I don't think people need to be convinced that "this job-stealing robot that makes trash and accelerates climate destruction faster than the internet was already doing" by hit pieces

Then why are there so many hit pieces?

Obvious example, the primary legitimate criticism of data centers is when they continuously operate a gas turbine, but a) most of them don't actually do that, and b) all the same issues are present whenever anyone operates a gas turbine for any other reason, so why is it an article about data centers instead of an article about gas turbines? Why are there articles about data center water use in regions where there isn't significant water scarcity to begin with and data centers aren't the primary consumers of water anyway?

Likewise, if you actually want to improve the situation then the proposals should be to e.g. get data centers (along with everyone else) to stop using fossil fuels to generate electricity, but instead the proposals are to ban data centers even if they source their electricity from solar/wind/nuclear/hydro.

Those are the differences that make something a hit piece.

>>Three of these are what I said to begin with (people consume the AI output instead of patronizing the source) and the fourth is that the quality of the output sucks, which is the part they're actually improving over time -- but that's going to make the first problem worse.

What? The art is not "improving" it's "different". Also, as slop output increases, the models train on more slop. GIGO doesn't seem like it can fix itself if you just robot-centipede it.

Why so many hit pieces? Because public sentiment and media protectionism align. Your original post seems to be arguing a "wag-the-dog situation", when this is more of a "arm the insurgents" situation imo. Why are there so many people upset about AI data centers when data centers have been around for decades? Idk, go look at the buildout rate and tell me if you notice anything in the trend line changing around the time of AI rollout. And it's not just burning fossil fuels, they also require tons of construction and water usage.

And again, some people just hate AI. Full Stop. There is nothing good about it to those people. Hell, I barely think the internet was a net good, so trying to tell me that AI is anything other than a capitalist fever dream to finally replace knowledge workers is going to be a hard sell. This isn't because I'm technologically illiterate or incapable of critically reading an article. Also, plenty of people are using the data centers as radicalizing topic to get people to...stop using fossil fuels to generate electricity.

Your stated thesis was "the better explanation is that the media is out to kill AI/Data centers" and I think misunderstanding how little people outside the tech world actually want AI (you're not alone obviously, it's why we're in this bubble in the first place).

> The art is not "improving" it's "different".

It's pretty obvious that image generation models are getting better at e.g. producing hands with the expected number of fingers.

> Your original post seems to be arguing a "wag-the-dog situation", when this is more of a "arm the insurgents" situation imo.

Then why are the complaints about nonsense things like water usage in regions with no meaningful water scarcity?

> And it's not just burning fossil fuels, they also require tons of construction

They're paying to train new people in the trades to do construction, which is good because then we'll have them even after the boom is over and might finally be able to do something about the housing shortage.

> And again, some people just hate AI. Full Stop. There is nothing good about it to those people.

Which is fine, but then they should be trying to get companies to stop using AI-generated content rather than trumping up nonsense about data centers being "loud" and so on.

Notice that the latter doesn't actually do any good because you can't get rid of the AI slop by having them build the data center in a different place, and it doesn't help you to offer them motivated reasoning full of bad arguments that are easier to knock down.

> Obvious example, the primary legitimate criticism of data centers is when they continuously operate a gas turbine, but a) most of them don't actually do that,

Almost 30% of new AI data centers are self-powered at least for the first few years until they can get a sufficient grid hookup, and at least half of those are using either gas turbines or reciprocating engineers that are way more polluting than gas turbines.

So you are right...most don't do that. But when a new AI data center is proposed in your area you don't necessarily know if yours will be one of the ~15% that is highly polluting. Even if it is touted as being all grid powered if anything delays getting the grid connection they often turn to temporary onsite power.

Worse, many of these project are being rushed through approval with barely any time for the public to review and comment on the plans.

> and b) all the same issues are present whenever anyone operates a gas turbine for any other reason, so why is it an article about data centers instead of an article about gas turbines?

First, because there are way more AI data center projects currently underway than there are existing data centers. The other things that use gas turbines are using them at about the same rate as they have been for many years.

Second, those other uses are usually either short term emergency use or they are comply with with pollution controls. For 99% of people an AI data center is the only thing that might operate a bunch of gas turbines with poor pollution control near a residential neighborhood 24/7 for a long time.

> Even if it is touted as being all grid powered if anything delays getting the grid connection they often turn to temporary onsite power.

This seems like the sort of thing where you shoot yourself in the foot and then don't like that your foot hurts. Who exactly is delaying the grid connection?

> But when a new AI data center is proposed in your area you don't necessarily know if yours will be one of the ~15% that is highly polluting.

So pass a law against the high polluting ones in particular and then it won't be.

> Worse, many of these project are being rushed through approval with barely any time for the public to review and comment on the plans.

This presumes there should be "plans" being submitted to begin with. There should be laws that say what kind of generators you can and can't operate etc. and anyone should be able to do anything which is in compliance with the rules.

Requiring pre-approval is the hallmark of a shakedown and the fact that it's so common is one of the reasons everything has become so expensive.

> First, because there are way more AI data center projects currently underway than there are existing data centers. The other things that use gas turbines are using them at about the same rate as they have been for many years.

I don't really buy the argument that people who have been doing something wrong for a long time should get a special exception from needing to do the right thing going forward.

> Second, those other uses are usually either short term emergency use or they are comply with with pollution controls. For 99% of people an AI data center is the only thing that might operate a bunch of gas turbines with poor pollution control near a residential neighborhood 24/7 for a long time.

You may be underestimating the badness of essentially all of the coal-fired power plants.

And "near a residential neighborhood" isn't a real qualifier because that's everywhere. If you built a power plant in the Alaskan wilderness then it would be "near a residential neighborhood" because the people who work there would have to live somewhere in the general vicinity of it. Threre are states in New England that can't hit their air pollution goals because they're downwind of coal-fired power plants in West Virginia.

> This presumes there should be "plans" being submitted to begin with. There should be laws that say what kind of generators you can and can't operate etc. and anyone should be able to do anything which is in compliance with the rules.

Planning and approval is about more than generators. These projects often want tax breaks or other special treatment in exchange for offering some kind of benefit to the jurisdiction they are in.

For example Project Jupiter wants a 30 year property tax exemption, instead paying a large amount over that time to support schools and public infrastructure. It involves issuing $165 billion in bonds, and was rushed through approval so fast there wasn't even time to write up the details before the county supervisors voted, let alone time for any public review.

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