AI's Dark Side: The Unseen Impact on Data Centers

“Sure, someday it might make a whole lot of things better, but the ordinary Americans’ experience with AI is as if after the invention of electricity, every factory worker was assigned to start each workday by receiving an electric shock, and newly founded electrical companies went around to rural farms tasering farm children involuntarily and then dropping a dead electrocuted hog down the family water well.”

I don't necessarily agree that it ISN'T the data centers. I think it's both. I think that a lot of people in our industry don't recognize just how unpopular AI is in many circles. Particularly among young people. Many people feel that they don't have a choice, that AI is being rammed down their throats, so to speak. They see the gold rush of AI as being fool's gold, driven much more by the desire of very wealthy people to make even more money than by the altruistic desire to make people's lives better. Now, candidly, I think that AI is a very powerful tool. I've written about that before. I expect AI to bring us breakthroughs in science, medicine, technology, etc. But that isn't the way many, dare I say most, people are experiencing it today. They are seeing the same social media and tech giants who, instead of their promise of bringing us together, have driven isolation and broken down our social fabric. While many older people have actually welcomed AI chatbots as a way of staving off loneliness and isolation, many young people see these same chatbots as an existential threat to their social and professional futures. And AI proponents are doing NOTHING to alleviate those fears. Some thirty years ago, a survey asked people whether they felt that the Internet would improve or degrade their lives. I don't recall the exact numbers, but something like seventy-five per cent held a positive view of the Internet. A recent poll asking people about AI was pretty much the inverse. (Now, one could argue whether the Internet actually lived up to those expectations, but that's a whole different post.) I think that one of the main differences is that the Internet was made available to people as an option, at least initially. AI, on the other hand, feels as if it is being forced on people whether they want it or not. But as I said before, data centers themselves are not blameless either. They have increased the use and cost of energy substantially. Aside from where that energy is coming from (many companies have gone back on their green energy and carbon reduction pledges), the infrastructure to deliver it is woefully inadequate. And, typically, it is the taxpayer who is funding the bill for the infrastructure to deliver that energy. And, even with improved, recirculating water systems, a large amount of water is ultimately used and evaporated to cool the systems. Yes, the water that cools individual servers can be recirculated, but that heat still has to go somewhere. In the end, it is still cooled either by air (very energy intensive) or by water (very water intensive). And the companies are not being honest about this. And don't even get me started on instances when data centers are being proposed in areas that then need to be clear-cut...

Most Americans (52%) are concerned about AI’s use in daily life. That’s a different issue than data centers, which are even more deeply unpopular: Only a quarter of Americans would support building a data center in their community. Internal polling shows that data centers have the same popularity as nuclear waste. Read more from Axios about the decline of AI and how the techbros are scrambling desperately to persuade the public of its power before their bubble comes crashing down. https://lnkd.in/e-jRxYTQ

Saw an interesting essay from Mark Zuckerberg about AI. I think he makes some good points, but, IMO, the most important consideration by far (IMHO) is this almost "by the way" statement: "Countries like China are bringing online 1GW+ of nuclear capacity every other week, so we will need to accelerate building both energy and data centers to remain competitive." (Mark Zuckerberg, August 10, 2026) If we don't get over the NIMBY-ism, mostly false claims about electricity and water usage, and overblown environmental concerns, we will end up in a very difficult place in the future. Whole article here: https://lnkd.in/gCKQcZzk

Why does the most recent letter from numerous AI employees, including leaders of AI companies, matter more than other open letters? Jessica Eaves Mathews compares AI developments with the Cold War era when international collaboration and coordination were key issues. What's at stake may be even more significant than a nuclear arsenal. https://lnkd.in/g7wNdUg3

THE Hope: AI Guardrails! "In mid-July, Hassabis published an essay on X arguing that the U.S. should create an industry-funded “standards body” to help assess the safety of AI models. The entity would operate like the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a self-regulatory body established during the Great Depression that oversees brokerage firms and is funded by the sector, he said." THIS. Please! #AIrisk #DemisHassabis #AIsafety #GoogleDeepMind #AIcompliance #nwmMN

Nukes and AI - what does the intended unholy alliance of these two water-guzzling technologies mean for humans living nearby? Physicist M.V. Ramana dissects the problems, unproven technologies, & misleadingly vague industry talking points. https://lnkd.in/dkJSH4bz

This thoughtful new #IISS analysis argues that AI creates escalation opacity by compressing decision timelines, increasing complexity, and making it harder for leaders to understand how crises are actually unfolding. I would take the argument one step further. Escalation opacity is not simply a function of AI. It is a function of who controls the systems that generate strategic understanding. As frontier AI firms increasingly shape intelligence, cloud infrastructure, foundation models, and decision-support tools, they are influencing the environment in which states interpret threats, signal resolve, and make strategic choices. From a constructivist perspective, this shifts the conversation beyond technology. Escalation is not determined solely by capabilities. Escalation is shaped by shared understandings, legitimacy, and the institutions that mediate decision-making. #AI #NationalSecurity #escalationopacity #NuclearDeterrence #StrategicStudies #Constructivism #DefenseInnovation #FrontierAI

What does OpenAI's recent embarrassing 'rogue' AI breach tell us about human ingenuity and whether AI is a weapon of mass destruction? #AI #informationtechnology #publicsafety #risk https://lnkd.in/gW37uT54

Most people treat AI like a faster search engine. But the real game-changer is how AI helps us solve high-dimensional trade-offs in our own lives. From nuclear reactor safety to career vs. leisure, here is how we can use the Pareto Frontier.