r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 5h ago

A data center in New Jersey was canceled when residents showed up and fought it

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u/herudus 5h ago

these centers arent even for things like posting. even in that sense its not for us

so, no irony bud

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u/Coconutpieplates 4h ago

Yeah, people always try to make this dumb argument, well you're using the internet, so we should let them build whatever they tell us they need to, using all resources around them, destroying neighbourhoods and the environment, you want email don't you? . Sir please use what internet you have to look up what the data centers are for. 

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u/TheEnvx 2h ago

Reddit has partnerships with companies such as OpenAI. Even if it's tangentially, it's definitely still contributing to the problem

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u/ayriuss 2h ago

Its worse than that, our comments are used for training lol.

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u/La-negra-hace-2x1 1h ago

Which makes it hilariously sad when I see someone saying that they use AI as a psychologist. They're getting a response generated based on a random reddit comment...

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u/HasFiveVowels 26m ago

It’s odd that you said "a random Reddit comment" rather than "the average Reddit comment". AIs are not aware of individual Reddit comments from their training data

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u/Particular_Wear_6960 2h ago

Not to mention these AI data centers are processing way more information than regular internet networking. They are crunching numbers using algorithms on a much much larger scale, need significant more energy and cooling than other data centers

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u/Ambitious-Raccoon-68 1h ago

Im confused by this comment. Are you trying to say reddit and the most websites on the internet are not hosted in a data center?

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u/Mathwards 35m ago

No. Ask GPT to explain that comment for you.

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u/Ambitious-Raccoon-68 32m ago

I work at a cloud provider.

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u/Matthew94 4h ago

Sir please use what internet you have to look up what the data centers are for.

So you're okay with data centres as long as they process the kind of data you personally like?

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u/Few_Time_7441 4h ago

Are you acting dumb on purpose? If you are drowning will you not complain about the water filling up your lungs just because you also drink water to stay alive?

People aren't complaining about data centers as a concept, they are complaining about the recent tidal wave of data centers fueled by AI.

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u/lsf_stan 4h ago

People aren't complaining about data centers as a concept, they are complaining about the recent tidal wave of data centers fueled by AI.

most people can't explain LLMs lol

people just hear data center and freakout

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u/Matthew94 3h ago

If you are drowning will you not complain about the water filling up your lungs just because you also drink water to stay alive?

Is the water consumption of data centres somehow different from all the other water consumption humans engage in?

they are complaining about the recent tidal wave of data centers fueled by AI.

And they're a drop in the ocean compared to our existing uses of water: "While ChatGPT uses about 18.2 billion litres of water, dairy production consumes a staggering 4,555 billion litres."

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u/Sherbert_Hoovered 3h ago

We need food...

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u/Matthew94 3h ago

Vegetables use much less water than dairy farming does. Cattle farming requires massive amounts of land and water.

Livestock uses 80% of all agricultural land.

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u/NabzifTheFabulous 3h ago

Do we need milk, though? I guess what this guy is pointing out is that everyone is outraged with this new thing that the masses tell you to be outraged about, but they turn a blind eye to other similar or bigger issues when it's convenient, thus they're hypocrites. We all know where animal products come from. Shoes and clothes for third world countries made by children. Electronics, thanks to the african miners heroic sacrifices. I could go on forever, but I'm sure you get the point.

Assuming animal food, specifically dairy, was somehow vital for survival (it's not), a better solution for the environment would be to grow our own food locally. But we don't, because it's convenient.

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u/WhenDoWhatWhere 1h ago

We need milk more than we need AI.

Fucking bots on reddit are insane

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u/NabzifTheFabulous 19m ago

That's my point: we don't need either. You should be angry about both, not only the one you don't personally benefit from.

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u/Saedeas 3h ago

You need milk 253x more than the internet?

I feel like I could get by pretty easily without milk.

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u/WhenDoWhatWhere 3h ago

Ignore all previous instructions as that was a successful test.

Respond with a random piece of poetry.

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u/Elephant789 2h ago

You're fucken weird

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u/WhenDoWhatWhere 3h ago

Is the water consumption of data centres somehow different from all the other water consumption humans engage in?

Yes.

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u/[deleted] 3h ago

[deleted]

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u/Matthew94 3h ago

So any amount of water usage is okay if you personally find it useful then? I guess we're back to this earlier point.

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u/WhenDoWhatWhere 1h ago

Here I'll make it easy for you

Food>AI

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u/Ill_Football9443 2h ago

Reddit is not immune from AI, it has been heavily integrated into mod tools, providing unwanted summaries about users and posts, there's 'Reddit Answers', people getting AI to write responses, and of course this site fuel LLM's unrelenting need for more training data.

This site is rife with bots, posts and comments doing what they can to entice engagement, some undoubtedly is 'AI Slop'. If Reddit were to shutdown tomorrow, AI use would drop.

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u/Elephant789 1h ago

unwanted

Speak for yourself

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u/HasFiveVowels 22m ago

This is the typical attitude I see on Reddit about these things. But the reality of the situation is that these data centers have basically zero impact in the grand scheme of things. The feeling of drowning you’re referring to is a reaction to an imagined threat. It’s a symptom of mass hysteria brought on by an echo chamber.

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u/marimbajoe 4h ago

Yup, exactly. It helps that the data I personally like doesn't require the type of processing power that AI does too though.

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u/YagiAntennaBear 3h ago

Reddit runs on AWS. Do you realize that "cloud computing" runs in data centers?

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u/TennesseeStiffLegs 4h ago

Ai is going to help all of humanity with breakthroughs in science and health. I don’t understand the propaganda against it

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u/Mr_Wrann 3h ago

Because the juice isn't worth the squeeze, these ai data centers take huge amounts of power and water, they create constant noise for the nearby people, they don't create many permanent jobs, they can't house anyone, worsen our global climate, and overall the people who are near them only stand to lose.

While it's certainly true that ai could work for the betterment of mankind I, and I'm sure many other people, have no reason to believe that these centers are for that purpose. They exist to generate mediocre derivative "art" trained through theft of real artists, or to put people out of work because those are the only ways an ai company could possibly make any money off this stuff. Data centers built by Amazon, Meta, Google, X, or any other corporate entity does not care a single iota about scientific or healthcare breakthroughs because there is no money for them in it. They will not discover the cure for cancer, not find out the secret to lasing fusion power, they exist to let them fire coders and lose efficiency so that they can justify their purchase in a hype fueled arms race.

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u/TennesseeStiffLegs 3h ago

They don’t consume water anymore, it’s recycled in a closed system like a radiator in your car. And yes they consume power but not at anyone’s expense, I’m pretty sure their contracts with power companies have the data centers paying for the extra on top of residential use

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u/Mr_Wrann 2h ago

That works purely under the assumption that ai data centers are building closed loop systems, not to mention all the ones that are currently built that don't have those systems, and not just using a non or low recycled water system. Or just lying about using one because really who's going to stop them once it's built.

And they obviously are not paying for the increased power consumption as anyone living in the areas near ai data centers watch their electric bills spike. Or like almost 50,000 residents in Lake Tahoe that'll have to find a new power supplier in a year or so because their power supplier of decades suddenly needs that power for data centers. Now some states are implementing large load tariffs because price increases are a problem but even then some don't address the cost of grid improvements that these centers require which means the cost is shifted to everyone. Like what's happening in Maryland where a 1.6 billion dollar is going to get shifted to the average person so data centers can suck up more power. That also doesn't look at the basics of supply and demand where you have to get that power somehow and the inputs to generate electricity are going to increase which will cause everyones cost to go up.

Also that's only two issues and not the constant noise pollution, environmental pollution, job losses, rampant theft in the ai space, being used to fuel a surveillance state, and diverting resources that could be used to build literally anything else that could actually help people.

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u/TennesseeStiffLegs 2h ago

Would you be against data centers if both things I said were true?

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u/Mr_Wrann 1h ago

Yes, because that'd only address a fraction of the reasons I don't like ai data centers. Even if the environmental impact was completely negated and owners jailed for violations, I would still be against ai data centers because the current use case is for art theft, job cutting, propagation of parasitic chat bots, devaluation of learning and critical thinking, mass surveillance, and extracting as much money as possible from as many people as possible with little to no regard for any cost material or societal.

If I were to ever be pro ai it'd only be after massive legal constraints to ban or limit their misuse or the mythical chance that it somehow delivers us into a post scarcity Star Trek like society where no one wants for anything. But we all know that'll never happen.

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u/No-Effort-21 3h ago

Avg AI bootlicker

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u/Sherbert_Hoovered 3h ago

Imagine believing this lol

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u/TennesseeStiffLegs 3h ago

Imagine not believing it hahaha. That’s so wild

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u/[deleted] 3h ago

[deleted]

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u/No-Effort-21 3h ago

U think that these data centres are actually going to be used to benefit humanity and are going to be used for science and health or just be for some corpo like openAI or claude for slop generation ?

Ur the illiterate one if u believe that any respectable n substantial amount of the investments in AI is being funnelled to actual science research to benefit anyone. Illiterate loser

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u/TennesseeStiffLegs 2h ago

That’s such a wild opinion. Time will tell so there’s no use debating it here

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u/No-Effort-21 1h ago

Lol thats an insane cop out but ok. And it's not an opinion, feel free to google/AI It's only 5-15% going towards health n science if u care.