Memphis is a warning: AI will be driven off-planet [video]

AI is latest process-intensive industry that brings the dominance:energy ratio into sharp focus. Once it was code breaking (which may have raised Virginia a tiny fraction of a degree over the years). Then crypto currency, which China invested in heavily for a while because GPUs are a good market and they had a large electric grid with no pockets of litigious resistance. China has relented on crypto somewhat, probably because they considered it a luxurious speculation which is not panning out: aside from a few vocal hobbyists it is still a world focused on money.

Then Elon did Memphis as 'big' and as 'right' as possible in a single place. The land use was minimal, factory pollution absent, and 'global AI concerns' were shuffled to the side. (Look out! What ever the actual danger, the UN smells parliamentary debate and governance money!) and what remained, the low hanging fruit, was the emissions of a set of natural gas turbines as many as 35 (~422MW) in May of this year. Elon will wind up removing almost all the turbines from the site and relocating them to a less contentious site and get delivered only ~40% of what he's paying for through the electric grid.

Then Elon will abandon Memphis completely and relocate near the power plant, because there's little reason not to if he is denied his power factor. The world will be shocked to discover how few people it takes to run such a place, and how little you have to pad their pay to get them to accept a change of scenery and relocate as a group. His competitors will polish their halos and laugh at the mistakes he has made, and pat their fragmented, distributed networks hanging off the grid affectionately. Then they will start relocating their computing centers near power plants, pretending they did it for their own reasons.

So the 'Rage Mill' that is More Perfect Union has broken something. They have approached an outspoken group of people who (perhaps) had a price which Elon might have been willing to meet. Many of us do. And through the 'life is a comic book' good&evil model which has painted Elon as evil, gathered 2 million views and $10,000 donation in two months, slammed doors shut. Oh well.

And after Elon pulls out of Memphis he will land on his feet. And Grok will be closer to its power source than ever. And it's a coin toss at this point whether total power, or parallel connectivity between active nodes, will be a deciding factor of AI's next step. Elon will have both. But what More Perfect Union has started, whether better for Memphis or no, might plant a seed that scales. Elon will be attacked again, only this time it will be over the 'carbon footprint' of those same turbines at their new location. Carbon footprint, that metric that is strangely absent in China's business decisions.

AI needs to be as close to its power site as possible, which will start to become incompatible with its proximity to people. So many people have accepted 'carbon footprint' as something corporation are expected to pay (while being offered nothing of estimable value for it) that the effects down the road are pretty much inevitable, and somewhat different than they might have been.

AI is going to be chased away from people, and off the planet into orbit.

Everyone fine with that?