Ben Thompson makes the case in today’s article that AI data centers should pay local residents, a sort of corporate-run UBI:
I do get how ridiculous this sounds, but ridiculous is how we do things in America.
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@manton I feel like they should bring at least two things to the party. Their own power and their own cooling system not based on water.
I know, big requirements, but it’s the right thing to do. They’re not even trying to solve environmental problems. They’re just making them worse!
@fahrni 💯
What’s ridiculous is expecting people to go along with a neighbor who consumes all of the water and electricity resources in an area and in return charges a fee for access to AI results of unproven worth.
@manton Sounds like what Hershey’s, cadburys, rowntrees .. and that’s just chocolate companies ,, did when they got started .. forever ago .. and do no longer .. history rhymes.
@manton maybe *all datacenters* or maybe even all industry that takes natural resources or contributed to climate change🤔
@brandonscript For climate change, instead of blocking data centers we should be requiring clean energy for new construction. Pauses are temporary, clean energy will benefit the grid for decades.
@manton Both are needed. It’s not a case of either/or. Data centers need to pay for themselves without pillaging taxpayers and ratepayers, while at the same time we should be ramping up clean energy sources.