"There’s a second question resting on top of that one: whatever AI can do, will it make a lot of money doing it, thus justifying the enormous investments currently being made or planned for data centers? "
Even if AI makes a lot of money doing so, it will not justify anything. Even if AI increases the productivity of human beings, it will not justify anything, because we don't need to be more productive. More productive just means more destruction and the placement of short-term greedy human interests over the health of nature. Even if AI cures rare diseases, it will not justify anything because the side effects and damage it does in terms of energy usage far outweighs the good.
The AI datacenter issue is simple - it should be stopped. The only people who find it complex are those who desperately hold holy our capitalistic system of endless production and innovation, for nothing. There is nothing that can justify AI and if human beings had any sanity, we should have a zero tolerance policy towards it.
Of course that's hard to do when the vast majority of our retirement plans are invested in tech stocks and when it provides the promise of short-term gain for the middle-class living today.
This illustrates the near impossibility of avoiding the worst possible future. We simply can never say no to the suggestion that we are gods. This belief infects our behavior at every level directly but, more insidiously, indirectly through the countless ways it levers all else. This is a society in the throes of madness.
I think the possibility of avoiding it is small, indeed. But not zero. If every person who realizes it constantly raises awareness and shuns as much of this junk technology as possible, then there's a small chance the system will become vulnerable enough in the future to spark a real revolution. Don't lose hope and be vocal! That's the first step.
Abby Martin's movie is simply beyond shocking. She and her team travel the world to track the consequences of the US military. Her attendence at events such as I am betting the Munich conference (I can't recall all of them, one was in Hawaii) is brought together with this incredible cross-section of places/people that are steamrolled over. One place is Okinawa. The stories she includes are many I never knew.
It's hard for me to fully understand how Abby promotes the events. She is a journalist, but the website never mentions her own online vast presence. When I viewed the film at the UNC CH showing, I posted a video of her speaking prior to the film on IG. And what she describes is demonstrated so expertly with her story telling:
"Remember, I’m just one human brain, and I have not (illegally) digested every single book ever printed." I understand Bill, that when you included the parenthetical "Illegally," you were alluding to the all-to-often illegal digesting done by AI, but it's interesting and reassuring that there is absolutely no legal limit on how many books that a human can digest. That's because human digestion of books means the digestion of ideas. Our human brains extract the ideas and information out of books in the same the way that our intestines extract the nutrients out of food. And, at the core of copyright law and theory is that copyright only controls how ideas and information are formatted. No one, fortunately, can copyright an idea.
Imagine if a professional football team sent its game plan to the opponent before the game, or if General Eisenhower sent his invasion plans to Hitler. You would say that’s impossible. Now, realize that the Conservative Republican organization shared all their plans on how they would take over and change our government before doing anything. Yes, the Heritage Foundation created and published a 920-page document with 30 chapters, each written by a different person, as a book in 2024 called PROJECT 2025: A MANDATE FOR LEADERSHIP: A CONSERVATIVE PROMISE. That’s bold or audacious — to give us their plans before they start executing them. They told us how they planned to seize control of our government, and then they did exactly that.
Some background: “Crafted by the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is the most well-funded and extensive effort by the conservative movement to seize control of the U.S. government.” Pierce, Simon. Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 by Joseph Coors of Coors Beer and was later funded by the Koch Family Foundation, an oil baron family in Texas. The Heritage Foundation began compiling policy recommendations in 1980, publishing “A Mandate for Leadership” that President Reagan used.
My thinking and analysis have divided the agenda into several parts. They argue that every successful company has only one CEO—one person without restrictions, except that these executives are accountable to their boards and shareholders. The concept of a three-branch government is hindering our progress, and they want to create a single CEO for our country, which would be the president. They plan to allow the president to act as a dictator by removing checks from the other two branches of government. Their goal is to weaken Congress and the judiciary; they seek to eliminate any department that could hold the president accountable.
This government should be limited to its core functions; all other social services should be terminated and privatized by private companies. Labor unions can influence the government, and their influence should be reduced. The government should remain nonintrusive, ensuring maximum freedom for individuals and businesses while keeping taxation to a minimum to keep the government small. We should restore our country based on its history, restrict immigration, and promote a White Christian Nation.
Basically, the idea that our government is controlled by its citizens is nonexistent. Their government has no obligation to its citizens; they never consider that the people living in our country have no say in how this government operates. What they avoid mentioning is who would actually have control over this president — definitely not the voting public, nor Congress or the judiciary. So, who would it be? It would be the group of autocrats who authored this document.
This is what is promoted, but behind this presentation is the fact that the Heritage Foundation was funded by wealthy executives and CEOs in our country and is working for them. They couldn't give a damn about the general population, except that, as consumers, they are a necessary ingredient for their growth.
Unitary Executive theory, where utmost power is devolved unto the president, to use as he sees fit. I first heard about this concept during the Bush/Cheney admin. It's a frightening power grab to further remove the will of the people from government decision making.
I notice a pattern in how the distribution of power is accorded by those who seek to cut majority will from the equation. They try to concentrate power onto those people or councils over which they can exert firm control, and they tend to dilute power where their grasp is less assured. This is clearly shown in the use of "States' Rights." When States are given preference over issues where the national consensus is unsettled, such as gun control or abortion. When they feel they can force a bill through congress though, States' rights fall by the wayside!
“Logorrheic” — my new favorite word. And, yes, Ed Zitron is both logorrheic and eloquent. In this podcast riff he lights into the the lame use cases for AI: https://youtu.be/N_3X6qF2tT4?si=kKb1I9h_oGwmW2D6. In fact, thanks to AI, I may never update my laptop again. The pop-up tells me I don’t have enough memory for the latest update, which I know is full of AI “functionality” I never asked for. I don’t need my email summarized. It creeps me out that a third party bot would read them. Who owns the data, again?
This is the digital equivalent of the gold gilt that has crept up the walls of the White House like a metallic mold. It’s all performative flash, no function.
There are now videos on YouTube with helpful advice on how to turn off battery-draining AI upgrades on iPhones.
Instead of being delighted by new bells & whistles, every upgrade reinforces a knee-jerk dislike for Big Tech.
Meanwhile, in China, it isn’t only clean energy and a 21st century grid that can deliver electrons more efficiently, but also more efficient chip design, which translates into less energy / water per unit of “compute.”
Still, did you know chips are slathered in PFAS? It’s for water resistance and cooling. At the end of this excellent Veritasium video, the host learns he has concerning levels of a certain kind of PFAS in his blood. The likely explanation: it comes from water around the Bay Area. I am guessing that if anyone were to do a study of PFAS levels in water near data centers, they’d find a halo spike. https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY?si=FMfuZyltD7UnrR7B
There is so much here its hard to digest it all...........but the switch from AI news to Green Technologies around the world tells the story. Rumania is ahead of the USA???? Ethopia is buying electric vehicles because they're more cost effective and less pollluting???
Makes a laughing stock of Old Stock White Nationalists in the richest..........and I have to say it, dumbest, country on earth. But I know they won't laugh........they'll get even more angry.
Heart attacks is what you get for having to double down on never being wrong........but always opposing real change. Enjoy that heart attack..........or choose rather to dig into the reports Bill provides us from around the planet.
This would be relevant if there were a single SMR with a prospect of ever being built, but there is not. What we have instead are letters of intent, vague timetables and failed attempts.
Not necessarily anymore. There is one solar farm in Oregon which generates 1 GW of power and has 1 GW of battery storage. So yes, it can provide 24/365 power, but it fell victim to interconnection issues, and its parent company went bankrupt in January. Amazon bought the facility for its data centres in the PNW for US$83 million.
Your 1 GW solar farm generates 1 GW only for a few hours near noon on a cloudless summer day. Any other time it is less than that and, of course, is zero at night. The units of energy storage are actually GWh but when people say 1 GW for batteries they usually mean 1 GW for 4 hours. The bottom line is that you would need much more than 1 GW of nameplate solar and much more than 1 GW of batteries to keep a 1 GW AI center running. It would be much cheaper to build 1 GW of natural gas generation even when you consider the cost of fuel.
You mean if the AI center is close to an airport, they aren’t allowed to put up solar panels? I suppose that would make sense. I wonder if that is the case.
That seems like another reason not to use gas turbines. If they are more expensive, people don’t want them and they pollute, why do the AI companies choose to use them?
I did read the article. I still don’t understand. What is the advantage of using a more expensive source of electricity, no matter what neighborhood it is in?
Data Centers: Are we getting anywhere near where we have already stored most of the data that is out there, and only new data need to be collected? How much redundancy is there in all these data centers - is there a way to share the data stored in the multiplicity of data centers? Since each of the data centers need its own electrical power, there must be a value relationship between the power used amongst all the data centers and the value of collecting more data amongst the redundant data residing in the multitude of data centers.
I recently learned that the 2021-22 Hunga Tonga underwater volcano was one of the greatest volcanoes in human history, and "... sent 146 million tons of water from the South Pacific Ocean into the stratosphere: The amount of water vapor ejected was 10 percent of the stratosphere's typical stock. It was enough to temporarily warm the surface of Earth. It is estimated that an excess of water vapour should remain for 5–10 years." - Wikipedia.
Because water vapor is a known greenhouse gas, it is quite likely that this contributed to the record shattering increase in global average atmospheric temperature in 2023-25. If that is the case, the reported excursions above +1.5C may well be temporary.
Of course the decade by decade increase toward the unknown tipping point toward runaway global overheating toward a Hothouse Earth equilibrium makes the imperative to reduce fossil combustion ASAP urgent enough. But we still have time to avoid the worst case if we can achieve a political climate change.
"There’s a second question resting on top of that one: whatever AI can do, will it make a lot of money doing it, thus justifying the enormous investments currently being made or planned for data centers? "
Even if AI makes a lot of money doing so, it will not justify anything. Even if AI increases the productivity of human beings, it will not justify anything, because we don't need to be more productive. More productive just means more destruction and the placement of short-term greedy human interests over the health of nature. Even if AI cures rare diseases, it will not justify anything because the side effects and damage it does in terms of energy usage far outweighs the good.
The AI datacenter issue is simple - it should be stopped. The only people who find it complex are those who desperately hold holy our capitalistic system of endless production and innovation, for nothing. There is nothing that can justify AI and if human beings had any sanity, we should have a zero tolerance policy towards it.
Of course that's hard to do when the vast majority of our retirement plans are invested in tech stocks and when it provides the promise of short-term gain for the middle-class living today.
This illustrates the near impossibility of avoiding the worst possible future. We simply can never say no to the suggestion that we are gods. This belief infects our behavior at every level directly but, more insidiously, indirectly through the countless ways it levers all else. This is a society in the throes of madness.
I think the possibility of avoiding it is small, indeed. But not zero. If every person who realizes it constantly raises awareness and shuns as much of this junk technology as possible, then there's a small chance the system will become vulnerable enough in the future to spark a real revolution. Don't lose hope and be vocal! That's the first step.
Abby Martin's movie is simply beyond shocking. She and her team travel the world to track the consequences of the US military. Her attendence at events such as I am betting the Munich conference (I can't recall all of them, one was in Hawaii) is brought together with this incredible cross-section of places/people that are steamrolled over. One place is Okinawa. The stories she includes are many I never knew.
It's hard for me to fully understand how Abby promotes the events. She is a journalist, but the website never mentions her own online vast presence. When I viewed the film at the UNC CH showing, I posted a video of her speaking prior to the film on IG. And what she describes is demonstrated so expertly with her story telling:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRFiIQ4iQXn/
Also IG is definitely where one sees her most online about her ongoing journey as she tours:
https://www.instagram.com/fababs
Lovely story about Ethiopia and EV too! Plus windpower power!
"Remember, I’m just one human brain, and I have not (illegally) digested every single book ever printed." I understand Bill, that when you included the parenthetical "Illegally," you were alluding to the all-to-often illegal digesting done by AI, but it's interesting and reassuring that there is absolutely no legal limit on how many books that a human can digest. That's because human digestion of books means the digestion of ideas. Our human brains extract the ideas and information out of books in the same the way that our intestines extract the nutrients out of food. And, at the core of copyright law and theory is that copyright only controls how ideas and information are formatted. No one, fortunately, can copyright an idea.
Thank for all of this information. You’re the best.
Paris police took all Musk’s office contents. Berlin and London are “hovering.”
Europe doesn’t like children’s pornography. Shocking.
It’s a create work project. A lot of noise for little gain.
Imagine if a professional football team sent its game plan to the opponent before the game, or if General Eisenhower sent his invasion plans to Hitler. You would say that’s impossible. Now, realize that the Conservative Republican organization shared all their plans on how they would take over and change our government before doing anything. Yes, the Heritage Foundation created and published a 920-page document with 30 chapters, each written by a different person, as a book in 2024 called PROJECT 2025: A MANDATE FOR LEADERSHIP: A CONSERVATIVE PROMISE. That’s bold or audacious — to give us their plans before they start executing them. They told us how they planned to seize control of our government, and then they did exactly that.
Some background: “Crafted by the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is the most well-funded and extensive effort by the conservative movement to seize control of the U.S. government.” Pierce, Simon. Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 by Joseph Coors of Coors Beer and was later funded by the Koch Family Foundation, an oil baron family in Texas. The Heritage Foundation began compiling policy recommendations in 1980, publishing “A Mandate for Leadership” that President Reagan used.
My thinking and analysis have divided the agenda into several parts. They argue that every successful company has only one CEO—one person without restrictions, except that these executives are accountable to their boards and shareholders. The concept of a three-branch government is hindering our progress, and they want to create a single CEO for our country, which would be the president. They plan to allow the president to act as a dictator by removing checks from the other two branches of government. Their goal is to weaken Congress and the judiciary; they seek to eliminate any department that could hold the president accountable.
This government should be limited to its core functions; all other social services should be terminated and privatized by private companies. Labor unions can influence the government, and their influence should be reduced. The government should remain nonintrusive, ensuring maximum freedom for individuals and businesses while keeping taxation to a minimum to keep the government small. We should restore our country based on its history, restrict immigration, and promote a White Christian Nation.
Basically, the idea that our government is controlled by its citizens is nonexistent. Their government has no obligation to its citizens; they never consider that the people living in our country have no say in how this government operates. What they avoid mentioning is who would actually have control over this president — definitely not the voting public, nor Congress or the judiciary. So, who would it be? It would be the group of autocrats who authored this document.
This is what is promoted, but behind this presentation is the fact that the Heritage Foundation was funded by wealthy executives and CEOs in our country and is working for them. They couldn't give a damn about the general population, except that, as consumers, they are a necessary ingredient for their growth.
Unitary Executive theory, where utmost power is devolved unto the president, to use as he sees fit. I first heard about this concept during the Bush/Cheney admin. It's a frightening power grab to further remove the will of the people from government decision making.
I notice a pattern in how the distribution of power is accorded by those who seek to cut majority will from the equation. They try to concentrate power onto those people or councils over which they can exert firm control, and they tend to dilute power where their grasp is less assured. This is clearly shown in the use of "States' Rights." When States are given preference over issues where the national consensus is unsettled, such as gun control or abortion. When they feel they can force a bill through congress though, States' rights fall by the wayside!
“Logorrheic” — my new favorite word. And, yes, Ed Zitron is both logorrheic and eloquent. In this podcast riff he lights into the the lame use cases for AI: https://youtu.be/N_3X6qF2tT4?si=kKb1I9h_oGwmW2D6. In fact, thanks to AI, I may never update my laptop again. The pop-up tells me I don’t have enough memory for the latest update, which I know is full of AI “functionality” I never asked for. I don’t need my email summarized. It creeps me out that a third party bot would read them. Who owns the data, again?
This is the digital equivalent of the gold gilt that has crept up the walls of the White House like a metallic mold. It’s all performative flash, no function.
There are now videos on YouTube with helpful advice on how to turn off battery-draining AI upgrades on iPhones.
Instead of being delighted by new bells & whistles, every upgrade reinforces a knee-jerk dislike for Big Tech.
Meanwhile, in China, it isn’t only clean energy and a 21st century grid that can deliver electrons more efficiently, but also more efficient chip design, which translates into less energy / water per unit of “compute.”
Still, did you know chips are slathered in PFAS? It’s for water resistance and cooling. At the end of this excellent Veritasium video, the host learns he has concerning levels of a certain kind of PFAS in his blood. The likely explanation: it comes from water around the Bay Area. I am guessing that if anyone were to do a study of PFAS levels in water near data centers, they’d find a halo spike. https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY?si=FMfuZyltD7UnrR7B
There is so much here its hard to digest it all...........but the switch from AI news to Green Technologies around the world tells the story. Rumania is ahead of the USA???? Ethopia is buying electric vehicles because they're more cost effective and less pollluting???
Makes a laughing stock of Old Stock White Nationalists in the richest..........and I have to say it, dumbest, country on earth. But I know they won't laugh........they'll get even more angry.
Heart attacks is what you get for having to double down on never being wrong........but always opposing real change. Enjoy that heart attack..........or choose rather to dig into the reports Bill provides us from around the planet.
Just Transition Now!!!
I work in clean energy, wrote this on the topic - https://substack.com/home/post/p-183600818 - BYOG is not just gas but speculative "Small Modular Nuclear Reactors"
This would be relevant if there were a single SMR with a prospect of ever being built, but there is not. What we have instead are letters of intent, vague timetables and failed attempts.
Speculative is the right term.
Couple of serious questions, if anyone knows:
What is the 44% of LA pavement that is not needed for parking, driving or sidewalks? What is it used for now?
If solar/battery really is the cheapest form of electricity, why are the new AI facilities using gas turbines?
Thanks.
The simple answer Phil is that solar/batteries is NOT the cheapest from of electricity if you want it to provide all of your electricity 24/7.
Thank you Mike. That at least makes sense.
Not necessarily anymore. There is one solar farm in Oregon which generates 1 GW of power and has 1 GW of battery storage. So yes, it can provide 24/365 power, but it fell victim to interconnection issues, and its parent company went bankrupt in January. Amazon bought the facility for its data centres in the PNW for US$83 million.
Your 1 GW solar farm generates 1 GW only for a few hours near noon on a cloudless summer day. Any other time it is less than that and, of course, is zero at night. The units of energy storage are actually GWh but when people say 1 GW for batteries they usually mean 1 GW for 4 hours. The bottom line is that you would need much more than 1 GW of nameplate solar and much more than 1 GW of batteries to keep a 1 GW AI center running. It would be much cheaper to build 1 GW of natural gas generation even when you consider the cost of fuel.
Airports?
You mean if the AI center is close to an airport, they aren’t allowed to put up solar panels? I suppose that would make sense. I wonder if that is the case.
Appreciate all the thoughts on solar vs gas. Does anyone have any idea what the 44% of pavement that can be removed is?
That seems like another reason not to use gas turbines. If they are more expensive, people don’t want them and they pollute, why do the AI companies choose to use them?
I did read the article. I still don’t understand. What is the advantage of using a more expensive source of electricity, no matter what neighborhood it is in?
Control is valued more than the price of electricity.
But what advantage is the gas turbine have for that?
Here comes the SUN ☀️😎. It's all right ‼️👋🤠
Thank you, Bill, for writing this post. Honestly, I have not read the post yet, but I will.
I prefer to stay human, I'm not a robot, and will never be.
Data Centers: Are we getting anywhere near where we have already stored most of the data that is out there, and only new data need to be collected? How much redundancy is there in all these data centers - is there a way to share the data stored in the multiplicity of data centers? Since each of the data centers need its own electrical power, there must be a value relationship between the power used amongst all the data centers and the value of collecting more data amongst the redundant data residing in the multitude of data centers.
I recently learned that the 2021-22 Hunga Tonga underwater volcano was one of the greatest volcanoes in human history, and "... sent 146 million tons of water from the South Pacific Ocean into the stratosphere: The amount of water vapor ejected was 10 percent of the stratosphere's typical stock. It was enough to temporarily warm the surface of Earth. It is estimated that an excess of water vapour should remain for 5–10 years." - Wikipedia.
Because water vapor is a known greenhouse gas, it is quite likely that this contributed to the record shattering increase in global average atmospheric temperature in 2023-25. If that is the case, the reported excursions above +1.5C may well be temporary.
Of course the decade by decade increase toward the unknown tipping point toward runaway global overheating toward a Hothouse Earth equilibrium makes the imperative to reduce fossil combustion ASAP urgent enough. But we still have time to avoid the worst case if we can achieve a political climate change.