I think the data center backlash is mostly about data centers
blog.andymasley.com
blog.andymasley.com
That's it. The government will bend backwards to accommodate the port of Rotterdam, Schiphol or ASML because those are national assets. But for AI the math simply ain't mathing.
Being first in something with such a massive cost, with dubious ROI, no good understanding of the hardware lifespan is a very risky bet. It’s completely possible the early players will end up with hardware and infrastructure they have to throw away/upgrade at cost in a few years, just because things are moving so quickly.
It’s fine to have some strategic investment in the grid, infra, and datacenters. But AI DCs in general should be seen as a risky bet
Computers are in the cloud -- so, nowhere and cost nothing. The AI-assisted search result is on a web page and only costs a little bit of screen space. Amazon may have eaten retail, but at least it ships stuff to my door, has a great selection, and employs people.
Data centers are big, noisy water guzzlers that don't do anything and don't employ enough people to matter. They don't answer questions. They don't write code for me. They don't recover my data if I lose it. If I want to take some computer-mediated action, I go to https://... not data-center://... so why do I need the damn thing uglying up my community?
To be clear, I am not saying that these are stupid or naive opinions or arguments. I'm just trying to point out the visibility aspect. There are cogent arguments why allowing a data center would be a net negative to a community even after you factor in the actual benefits it provides (which are often enjoyed by Other People Who Don't Live Here).
It is natural for us to want eg utility-style AI on tap and also not want the planet destruction that data centers bring. (Nor the brain destruction that AI brings.)
That is the visible part that leads most people to being anti data center. The average Joe thinks "why is my community, water supply, and money going to this thing I dont want"
If we are sharing just opinions, I'll say that it's definitely a mix of things. And the anti AI sentiment (in part because of the environmental impacts) is very real.
The rapid growth of AI possibly also raised anti tech growth sentiment more generally: in a way, we are realizing that tech doesn't live in clouds but is very much tangible, and its externalities too. Tech has never been this concrete in a way. And in parallel people are more and more aware that big tech doesn't straigtforwardly design its software to serve the end user, so yes, there's also a negative sentiment because of this too.
- https://read.misalignedmag.com/triangulating-ais-climate-imp...
Its just not the same thing.
The thing about data centers is that some are being built in this gold rush manner and people can't see the through line to how they will benefit from them. Data center infrastructure companies are making deals with town councils in rural areas that include restrictive NDA's so the voters can't inspect what the deal involves. Combine this with AI fatigue where every time you use a website or app and some new AI feature is being pushed on you and a lot of people just feel like completely overwhelmed by the situation.
If the data center companies were smart, they would be open and cooperative with the communities they are trying to build in. But they are impatient and think they can just throw more money at the problem and shove it down the community's throat.
Data centers polute their air, use up their water, increase their energy cost and make an unbearable noise in their neighborhood. But sure, they are simply anti progress for no reason.
Datacenters don’t need to use much water outside of normal office needs. They don’t need to increase energy costs. They don’t need to pollute or make any noise in normal conditions.
If they do any of those things in normal operations, it’s due to lacking regulations or the lack of enforcement of existing regulations.
As for the backlash itself, it seems safe to say it's motivated by a wide range of things. Ultimately though, I do agree with the point in the title (i.e. it's about datacentres) but I think a lot of the other factors mentioned are significant, but I still wouldn't expect even a perfect (impossible) poll/study to find a neat, unifying reason for most of the backlash.
Of course it's about the datacentres: why would anybody want even a modest, ye olde time datacentre, let alone a neo cloud / AI one, in their neighbourhood? You can call this nimbyism, which it is, but it's important to note the gulf of difference between a tech company's private profit facility and the sorts of projects where "nimby" typically is invoked.
Because this particular DC rollout is so massive and high profile, people have realised en masse that rejecting these things is something they can do. The anti-AI movement is absolutely a big part of this -- in terms of publicity, awareness, outreach -- but the various local peoples can (should, must) have their own reason for rejecting/protesting the projects.
Finally, given the dismal rate of promised capacity actually coming online -- which was apparent prior to and separately from "the backlash" -- I can't help but wonder if the widespread local resistance will end up as a scapegoat when questions start getting raised.
But actually data centers don't cut home values in half, anywhere, because they have some of the least significant externalities of any industrial building - the claims about their impact on residential neighborhoods are ill-informed lies, not very different from people being psychosomatically worried about EM radiation from cell phones giving them cancer. And TikTok was a big tech app from the get go, so if this hypothetical Joe the plumber really does think that the experience of using TikTok has gotten worse for himself or driven his grandmother insane in some way, and thinks that the best way to solve this problem is by preventing random data centers from being built in his neighborhood, then he is badly confused at best.
But one major argument in the article is that the pithy summary you gave of a hypothetical Joe the plumber and why he might have an ideological problem with big tech, is inconsistent with survey data from ordinary Americans (in the section "Americans love big tech, as long as you ask about specific companies"). Whether this is an elitist thing to believe has zero bearing on whether it is a true thing to believe.
I don't find it unreasonable to think that the money to be spend on these data centres could be spend on something else. Thus opposing them really does make sense.
And harmful
I dont think twitter represents all political sides. Twitter is its own echo chamber.
But also, not being on twitter, I have not seen "all political sides" being interested in "owning the backlash". I have seen claims that "backslash unifies the sides like nothing else" and literally "it gives me hope we can unite on at least one thing". Interestingly, the activists I listened to said "everyone has own reason to hate them, but they are unified in the goal" confirming it is mix of reasons. Trump voter protesting data center wont have the same motivations as progressive protesting data center.