Comment by flanked-evergl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by flanked-evergl | Hacker News Reader

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> The threat to stable and affordable electricity and water supply

The only threat to stable and affordable electricity supply is government regulations. The idea that we will from here on just have degrown and decline is insane. I'm not up for that. Which means we will always need more electricity, so time to get building more power plants. There is no bounds to how much electricity humans need, and the more we have the more prosperity we will have

As for water supply. Data centers barely make a blip on the water usage.

> The water, light and noise pollution?

The only one of these which actually has any validity is noise pollution, and the US has one of the lowest population densities of any country in the world, and data centres don't need to be close to population centres.

> The threat to jobs?

CEOs saying they are laying people off because of AI is not the same as anyone losing their job because of AI, but even if that was the case, it's about as smart as not using an electric drill to save jobs.

> The threat to truth and transparency?

AI does not only not threaten truth and transparency, it makes it easier to find the truth and to circumvent transperency restrictions.

> The threat to privacy?

It's not.

> The only threat to stable and affordable electricity supply is government regulations

That is straight up not true. Theres currently a threat due to the imprudently started war in the Middle East, there will be more once rivers start drying up and hydropower becomes unreliable or nuclear power plants can no longer be cooled.

> Which means we will always need more electricity, so time to get building more power plants. There is no bounds to how much electricity humans need, and the more we have the more prosperity we will have

This is an ideological dogma smuggled in as a self-evident truth. Please do make a point, not just an unsupported declaration.

> That is straight up not true. Theres currently a threat due to the imprudently started war in the Middle East

The US does not use crude oil from the Gulf to generate electricity. The US could scale electricity production at least 100 times without needing to import anything from the Middle East.

> there will be more once rivers start drying up

Rivers will not be drying up because of data centers.

> The US does not use crude oil from the Gulf to generate electricity.

And yet, reserves are at historic lows. Markets are weird, huh?

> Rivers will not be drying up because of data centers.

That wasn't the claim made, rivers will be drying up because of climate change (they are already!), which is a threat to energy supply. Data centers will accelerate said climate change, but that's not even relevant to disprove your previous assertion of regulation being the only factor.

I'll also note you still haven't justified your core ideological assertion you tried smuggling in earlier in any way.

> There is no bounds to how much electricity humans need, and the more we have the more prosperity we will have

There are bounds to the Earth's capacity for our consumption. We won't be prosperous if ecosystems collapse.

Dyson Sphere is the end game. Once you capture and use all of the sunlight hitting the earth, what do you do?

On our present course we're probably not going to reach Type I on the Kardashev scale, let alone Type II, because of collapse. We need to embrace long term planning instead of short term profits if we want to avoid that.

Of course we won't make Type I on the Kardashev scale if we abandon technological progress like AI.

"Long-term planning" has never once given us a quantum leap in technology. Having humans "plan" AI evolution is dumb. This stuff is happening. You can cry about it, but nothing you do will stop it from happening.

The best you can do is stop it from happening in your country, and the only result will be that your country will become completely insignificant within a couple of years.

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