USA is not building anything. Private companies are. And unlike regular infrastructure projects (housing, transportation, energy) this won’t really benefit the public at large when it’s done. It’ll just enable companies to churn out more slop, faster, and reel us further in.
Or to put it another way, a semiconductor, car or airplane factory wouldn’t really count as “infrastructure”, would they?
>won’t really benefit the public at large when it’s done
Then the public should make them look like fools and not pay for AI. But if people are paying for it, then they are probably capturing most of the value it produces. Paying Anthropic $20/mo is a trivial cost to recoup if it assists with your work, even at $60 or $100 it still makes sense for many.
The USA is a capitalist republic. Private companies (i.e. "the market") is how infrastructure largely gets built, on the assumption that markets are an efficient way to allocate resources.
This doesn't always work, but the idea is in the long term it works better than the alternatives.
"this won’t really benefit the public at large when it’s done"
I'm currently enjoying subsidized AI usage at relatively cheap prices from these same companies. It's cheaper than a cell phone bill and most people can afford it.
"Or to put it another way, a semiconductor, car or airplane factory wouldn’t really count as “infrastructure”, would they?"
No, but flying on an airplane 50+ years ago was only for the rich. Everyone I know now has flown somewhere, and it's very obtainable. I remember cell phones in the 80s being > $1 minute and a sign of being wealthy.
Capitalism can and does bring the costs of these things down.
Data centers will definitely benefit the public, as long as the government doesn't decide on creating their own monopoly.
The datacenter buildout is just a buildout of the electric grid in a roundabout fashion.
If you are for green energy and the electrification of primary energy this giant wave of unlimited private investment is the best gift you could have ever dreamed for. The fact we are doing our best to squander it is amazing to me.
We have a generational chance to build entire industrial supply chains and rapidly catch up from multiple generations of lack of investment in our electric grid but instead we are going to resist it every single step of the way.
Putting fucktons of energy infrastructure in the middle of nowhere for a gigantic room to employ like 100 people is not really the positive-externality dream of previous infrastructure booms
USA is not building anything. Private companies are. And unlike regular infrastructure projects (housing, transportation, energy) this won’t really benefit the public at large when it’s done. It’ll just enable companies to churn out more slop, faster, and reel us further in.
Or to put it another way, a semiconductor, car or airplane factory wouldn’t really count as “infrastructure”, would they?
>won’t really benefit the public at large when it’s done
Then the public should make them look like fools and not pay for AI. But if people are paying for it, then they are probably capturing most of the value it produces. Paying Anthropic $20/mo is a trivial cost to recoup if it assists with your work, even at $60 or $100 it still makes sense for many.
Electric utilities are certainly building out infrastructure. It's needlessly costly and slow in a lot of places, but it's happening.
Sorry for my crappy phrasing! I mean in the current building spree for AI, not in general.
It’s also always been private companies doing the building no? Just funding and ownership could be public.
The USA is a capitalist republic. Private companies (i.e. "the market") is how infrastructure largely gets built, on the assumption that markets are an efficient way to allocate resources.
This doesn't always work, but the idea is in the long term it works better than the alternatives.
"this won’t really benefit the public at large when it’s done"
I'm currently enjoying subsidized AI usage at relatively cheap prices from these same companies. It's cheaper than a cell phone bill and most people can afford it.
"Or to put it another way, a semiconductor, car or airplane factory wouldn’t really count as “infrastructure”, would they?"
No, but flying on an airplane 50+ years ago was only for the rich. Everyone I know now has flown somewhere, and it's very obtainable. I remember cell phones in the 80s being > $1 minute and a sign of being wealthy.
Capitalism can and does bring the costs of these things down.
Data centers will definitely benefit the public, as long as the government doesn't decide on creating their own monopoly.
The datacenter buildout is just a buildout of the electric grid in a roundabout fashion.
If you are for green energy and the electrification of primary energy this giant wave of unlimited private investment is the best gift you could have ever dreamed for. The fact we are doing our best to squander it is amazing to me.
We have a generational chance to build entire industrial supply chains and rapidly catch up from multiple generations of lack of investment in our electric grid but instead we are going to resist it every single step of the way.
Putting fucktons of energy infrastructure in the middle of nowhere for a gigantic room to employ like 100 people is not really the positive-externality dream of previous infrastructure booms
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