Change 𝌡 The Emergent Anti-AI Political Movement?

[Wannaplan?]

I’m creating this thread to foster discussion and to potentially share our insights to help understand the future of this. I do think this is relevant to planning and economic development as we are uniquely positioned to witness public sentiment and are oftentimes asked to portray those concerns in various documents shared with public officials and at meetings attended by residents and locally-elected officials.

1. Data Centers - Oppose this land use with the goal to generate broad-based fear and to pack local meetings. Planning commission members across the country will be faced with severe public pressure. The most significant and relevant opposition will be in the rural areas where land is abundant and is well-situated for large development proposals, and of course, your will see your friends and neighbors, and talk to them, as you all shop at the same grocery store and go to the same church. Use environmental concerns to argue for continued high water quality and better community health. Blame China. Preventing the development of data centers means preventing AI.

2. Support Local Businesses: “Main Street, Not Wall Street” - Large corporations will likely exclusively reap the benefits of the efficiencies created by the deployment of AI through its integration throughout the organization. The benefits to these large corporations extend from reduced labor costs to hyper-responsive supply chain systems to rapid continuous innovations that consumers and customers will enjoy not only due to lowered costs but also novelty. Mom and pop stores won’t be able to keep up, will lack the resources to fight for a level playing field, adopting AI at the scale of a small family business doesn’t make any financial sense, and the ability to remain price competitive will be lost forever. Fierce support of local businesses and an almost complete boycott of large corporations will be the lifeboat to ensure local businesses survive, and keep our towns and communities intact and viable.

Gut Check - Writing this is giving me a weird form of cognitive dissonance because I am by no means an expert on this, I am just a casual observer that has listened to a few podcasts about the concerns regarding AI, but I have the benefit of being a community planner that likes to think about land use and economic trends. There are massive gaps in this, these words here are just off the top of my head.

What do you think?

 

[michaelskis]

I think you are spot on and it is this weird Wild-West situation that we are in at the moment.

Locally, our City has not had an interest in data centers because they don't bring jobs and there is the leading question of opportunity loss. Utilities and land are still a finite resources and if we say yes to a data center, what might we need to say no to in the future. The big focus here is more around people than $$$ and you need jobs for people.

I also agree with the gap in usage of AI between small and large businesses. We are trying to combat that by having training from Google and a couple other providers specially on the use of AI for small business and offering this training for free to them. AI is a tool that can be very helpful if it is really understood. The other side of that is we also have larger corporations here that are really getting into AI in industries that you would not expect. One is an agricultural corporation that uses AI to control drones for everything from spaying fields, to ground scanning, to tractor operations, and yield tracking and projections.

At this point, I don't think there is a right or wrong answer but will be a learning curve for all of us.

 

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Working on a data center now to the tune of a $3 billion investment and more on the way. Existing center here now, another rumored to be in the works. Nearby towns considering data centers. Mind boggling the investment. A stack of $1 bills at $3 billion dollars is 203 miles high.

 

[bureaucrat#3]

Working on a data center now to the tune of a $3 billion investment and more on the way. Existing center here now, another rumored to be in the works. Nearby towns considering data centers. Mind boggling the investment. A stack of $1 bills at $3 billion dollars is 203 miles high.

I've seen some cities talk about hyperscale campuses that would have a value of $30-40 billion. Those are hard numbers to turn away. The noise issue seems to be somewhat overblown from most data centers vs fly by night rural data mining operations. I think water usage and power are the limiting factors. I've read some about purple water systems that have much lower usage.

Power is another issue. Some are starting to use nongrid tech. I think Mississippi has one where the company without permits just created gas powered turbines. Ive seen a few discuss mini-nuclear generation. From an electrical standpoint its a bit of a conundrum. Most of our power is a statewide system. If a city turns down a data center due to power and it goes somewhere else on the same grid, they're still going to bear any power increases, but not reap the property tax generation. The major concern is power transmission.

Overall, the noise and outrage is overblown in my mind. They should be treated like an industrial use. They are coming and because a lot of data can't be stored outside of the US, they have to go somewhere. My biggest issue with them now is the massive speculation thats occurring. I'm worried about a busting bubble.