7mo ago

Biden drafting plan for construction of AI data centers on federal lands

www.washingtonpost.com /business/2024/12/19/ai-data-centers-climate-biden/

Worried the United States could fall behind in artificial intelligence, the White House wants to encourage data centers and dedicated power plants.

Paywall removed: https://archive.is/55Ede

40 comments

This is fucking stupid , AI data centers are horrible and people hate having them in residential areas, plus they use massive amounts of water. This is stupid and AI is not the future.
- I wish I could just press "fast forward" and skip the years this society is wasting on AI, just the latest (cough... very profitable for the elite few) distraction from facing the rapidly looming polycrisis more directly.
  
  AI is not a trend. It's like calling computers a trend. Good luck
- AI is the future though. Open your eyes https://situational-awareness.ai/
And, let me guess, we'll need to drill for oil on those federal lands so we can power those data centers.
All for AI that almost no one wants.
- Don't worry, they'll probably build taxpayer-subsidised nuclear power plants for electricity which won't be available for access for the general public.
  
  But the general public will have to pay to store and secure all of the waste and clean it up when natural disasters hit the pools.
Why can’t we just use nuclear power for this? I know some companies are planning it. Using any other energy source is inefficient and expensive for AI training.
- Because there is no waste storage much less anywhere that could stand for the necessary thousands of years. And waste reprocessing is too costly for it ever to be developed by a for-profit or even non-profit but needs to break even company. It would cost trillions and several decades of no political interference in that money to research, develop, and build the reactors, best case.
  So, it just sits in pools waiting for a tornado to spread the contaminated water over a whole state, or an earthquake or fracking tremor to cause a leak into the ground water. If AI is chewing through rods, in a decade there will be a hell of a lot of waste and nowhere to put it, much less anywhere to keep it safe for thousands of years.
  
  .....look up ANY information on nuclear waste before ever commenting again.
  The Simpsons is not reality.
  
  Canada has a program.
  
  I know this is ironic given my username but you do realize nuclear waste doesnt work like sci-fi? There was a dump site planned in Nevada that was abandoned as a concept because there wasnt enough waste across the USA, this was at the height of nuclear power too. We have only gotten more efficient since then, hell inefficiency is actually introduced since some byproducts are useful for some alloys and composites.
  Also if ya can find a suitable location nuclear waste can quite literally be ignored till it's not a problem due to how half life works.
Great idea...
Let's make sure Elmo and trump can build data centers on federal lands wherever they want, surely nothing could go wrong.

40 comments