This is exactly the argument people are worried about. "If prices go up, it's a good thing." For whom? Residents will have to pay this for a decade before a nuclear reactor comes online.
Your argument conveniently ignores that electricity is tiny fraction of the average American's budget, which is far more heavily weighted toward housing, gas, and groceries. This argument is extremely tenuous.
> for the sake of shareholder value
This is emotionally manipulative and without substance. Data centers are being built because there's demand for them from people who want to use AI, like me. These data centers drive down the cost of AI, which is valuable to me, and to society. The fact that it also happens to increase "shareholder value" is irrelevant.
No they aren't
They're being built so shareholders can profit off of people like you. The fact that you benefit from it does not actually factor in any way aside from the fact that you will pay them for that benefit
They aren't benevolently trying to help you out, they just want your money.
The fact that you want AI and think it will help you and society is actually what is irrelevant. If they weren't confident it would make them money it would not be built no matter how beneficial it would be.
> No they aren't
You literally said they are building data centers to cater to demand later on in your own comment:
> If they weren't confident it would make them money it would not be built
There you go. Your own point debunked by your own words.
> They aren't benevolently trying to help you out
I didn't say anything about the owners building stuff out of charity or benevolence. Are you responding to the wrong comment? Yours is more-or-less irrelevant to mine in addition to being self-contradictory.
> The fact that it (building data centers) also happens to increase "shareholder value" is irrelevant
It's not irrelevant. It is the primary reason they are being built
Your understanding about the cause and effect around why data centers are being built is completely backwards
> It's not irrelevant. It is the primary reason they are being built
...and without any implications, that fact is irrelevant. Do you understand what relevance means? It means that there's meaning, implication. You haven't given a single follow-on implication from that hypothesis that actually matters to the discussion.
> Your understanding about the cause and effect around why data centers are being built is completely backwards
No, this is just factually false.
Fact: for datacenters, without market demand, without a buyer, shareholder value cannot possibly be generated.
So, first there is a market, and then companies act on it to generate shareholder value.
You're living in a world detached from reality where "shareholder value" exists as its own separate entity that can generate market demand.
You need to take a high-school level economics course so that you don't make objectively incorrect statements like this.
If you think people's motivations are irrelevant then we just live in different worlds, and there's no point continuing
I never said that peoples' motivations are irrelevant in general. Just that they're irrelevant in this specific case. You're putting words in my mouth, which clearly indicates malice.
> then we just live in different worlds, and there's no point continuing
We do. I live in reality, where most people understand basic facts of economics, causality is meaningful, and you still haven't actually provided a reason why you think that the motivations matter, so as far as the rest of us in the real world know, they don't. You've had three comments to point that out, and you haven't, so the reasonable conclusion is that you don't have a reason, and you're running away to avoid that intellectual dissonance.
You assume people's psychological resistance to increased cost is entirely based on the proportional impact of those cost increases. Yes, housing/gas/groceries are much larger portions of the increase in cost, but datacenters are much more visible than poor foreign policy or starting new conflicts with overseas energy producers. Also, electricity traditionally has much less cost variation than gas/housing/groceries.
> This is emotionally manipulative and without substance. Data centers are being built because there's demand for them from people who want to use AI, like me.
At my company's internal conference we had a rep from one of our partners come speak, and he emphasized that a significant value-add of our company's relationship to our partners is that we're much more tech-forward. he went on to say "Execs in [partner industry] don't know what AI is or what it does, but they know that they want it."
We're seeing AI features being bolted into every application under the sun, whether it actually adds functionality or not. I think you bear a significant burden of proof to the claim that the demand for datacenters is in turn driven by consumer demand for AI, and company boards losing their minds over what they think AI can do and demanding their R&D divisions sink millions of dollars into AI spend to try and capitalize on their dreams.
I'm reminded of Bitcoin: for a hot minute every startup was talking about blockchain and GPUs were getting snapped up by miners left and right because of what people imagined the value could be. That's what I'm getting at when I say "shareholder value:" these developments seem to be less about what value a company is _actually_ producing (& thus the inherent cost-of-goods-sold demand), and more about the _possibility_ of what value a company _could_ produce.
This is a good point. I see that I misunderstood your original argument - I thought you were claiming that the increase was going to be financially meaningful, rather than what you actually said, which was the perception of and response to the increase. My apologies. Thank you for your thoughtful response!
tbf, I didn't state the psychological thesis up front either :)
Or two jobs and a "side-gig" or three, and still barely "squeaking by", and still unable to afford health care or any other such "luxuries" of life.
If the data centers hadn't been _quite_ so hostile to absolutely all their critics and instead had simply offered to pay for some local schools or libraries or something, at like 5% of the cost of the data center, this would have gone differently.
Instead Altman says it will destroy the world: https://www.techradar.com/pro/quote-of-the-day-by-sam-altman...
So it's bad for the world according to its proponents, and at the same time, a bad neighbour? Why would anyone not vote against it given those?
Datacenter is not bringing more economic activity to the area.
the questions are 1) who is footing the bill and 2) who is benefiting from that economic activity
if it's not the local community, then why should they agree to it much less pay for some of it
That’s a great thing.
If the data center which requires the grid improvements is fully paying for the upgrades, I'm OK with it. OTOH, if they expect to fob off the cost of the otherwise-optional upgrade on the rest of the ratepayers, Fck-NO!
And for those who say "but it benefits the rest of the ratepayers, so they should pay too", NO! If you (person or corp) come in and demand we change something, you should be a net benefit for everyone, not just yourself.
Be a good citizen and help everyone, and you'll find support. Don't, and find people see you as an asshat and you'll find opposition.
More importantly, what says the grid improvements will go beyond upgrading the corridor to the new data centers? Sure, that might benefit customers right along that route, but not customers in general. IOW, even the "overall" improvements are likely to be limited, but the costs will be borne by everyone.
That said, the way grids are going, I consider the right solution to be primarily off-grid solar+battery on every house, maybe with local grids to share/level excess capacity, and maximum local solar/wind+battery for commercial. That would yield a robust power system far more resistant to human disasters relevant to civil defense and natural disasters; when every house can maintain basic communications, refrigeration, and sanitation on a near-indefinite basis (which is not possible with a grid-based collapse/destruction), disasters are far more survivable.
/s