Comment by jmyeet

So it's hard to get numbers here so I went looking for electricity usage figures for an automobile plant. This obviously depends on the size but the estimates I could find for a theoretical plant that produces 1000 vehicles a day are:

- 300-400GWh/year of electricity usage. It's significantly more for EVs, as an aside;

- Such a plant employes 2000 to 5000+ people.

Data centers also vary in size but I've seen estimates of 20-100MW being a typical range. 20MW run continuously is 175GWh/year.

So it seems like one large AI data center employs probably fewer than 50 people and uses as much electricity as a plant producing upwards of half a million cars per year. Those cars have a lot of utility, obviously, and employ a lot of people.

Let's be fair: AI data centers currently produce almost nothing of value and contribute almost nothing to the local or state economy. They're being built speculatively on the basis of a potential future value add that has yet to materialize.

My view is that the "value" AI data centers will add is for employers, by allowing them to fire people and suppress wages. That's the true use case. So, in other words, AI data centers represent negative jobs.

Five years from now we'll see studies and media reports on the relationship between how many jobs you can eliminate per MW of electricity. The added bonus is all the residents will be paying higher amounts for their electricity for that "privilege".