Comment by ck2

17 hours ago

so now we are speed-running global warming

there are now record setting gas turbine sales instead of solar/nuclear

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk8ziQCWK1w

and for what?

so we can have totally useless "AI" customer service agents where you still have to demand to talk to a human to properly get a problem solved

10 comments

ck2

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watwut  17 hours ago

But ... but ... but ... ai companies have safety teams that ... well ... make sure some kind of singularity mumbo jumbo threat wont happen. The thing they dont care about are ... well ... actual people and actual environment.

metalsiliconYT  17 hours ago

[flagged]

  • tgv  17 hours ago

    That doesn't make the slightest difference for two reasons:

    1. Natural gas still produces CO2, which is a climate change driver. (And, since burning more of it will only increase global temperatures, the data center will have more trouble losing its excess heat.

    2. Even if a data centre uses a totally clean energy source, it's still excess usage. That clean energy could have been used elsewhere. Until all energy is clean, usage by unnecessary sources is a net negative.

  • ck2  17 hours ago

    how about the non-stop methane burnoff for months ("flare") from all the oil fracking fields in the US that can be seen from SPACE for the past DECADE

    * https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/20/ameri...

    * https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/gas-drillin...

    that's already raising the local area temps, why not put that wasted fuel to work instead?

    build the datacenters literally next to the fracking fields, absolutely no-one there to complain, they all moved away already from the toxic air/water and there's already unlimited fuel

    • ipsum2  17 hours ago

      You described the company Crusoe. They've been building datacenters that do exactly what you said.

      https://www.crusoe.ai/resources/blog/understanding-the-probl...

      > Crusoe has built their business around turning flaring from an operational and regulatory risk for oil and gas companies, as well as an existential risk for our planet, into a multi-solve solution. Crusoe doesn’t just mitigate flaring emissions. They capture the gas, convert it into energy, and use it to power computing infrastructure.

      Edit: Crusoe sold its bitcoin-mining operation including the Digital Flare Mitigation business to NYDIG in 2025, so the above may be inaccurate.

      2 replies →

  • platevoltage  16 hours ago

    If only there were energy sources that didn't involve burning anything. Perhaps that nuclear reaction in the sky that wakes us up every day?