Comment by lelanthran
1 day ago
> Data center opposition is one of the rare areas that has bipartisan support.
This is true. Although, I think resistance to datacenters is just a symptom of the majority of people being anti-AI.
You have to be really dumb not to view a devaluing of your skills is a bad thing.
But data centers would still be built outside of your country, in China for example.
So if you really believe AI is gonna devalue your skills, you'd rather want data centers to be built in your country and potentially get dividends/UBI rather than in another country and have your job decimated by international competition and get nothing in return.
> So if you really believe AI is gonna devalue your skills, you'd rather want data centers to be built in your country
This makes no sense. It's just as true for the reverse assertion "If you really believe that AI won't devalue your skills, you'd rather want data centers to be built in your country". If it's true for both assertions (very big IF), then why state it?
> rather than in another country and have your job decimated by international competition and get nothing in return.
Again, this assertion makes absolutely no sense. You don't see why citizens would protest against local companies, companies which are the recipients of the value created by local taxpayers, devaluing their skills?
It's also really odd that you think they'll get anything in return. What makes you think this? Has this ever happened in the past, in the US, when too-big-too-fail companies laid off all their staff? This unwarranted optimism is the stuff of science fiction.
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TBH I can't really tell where you're going with this. You appear to be implying that either:
1. The objectors don't really believe that AI will devalue them, or
2. That you believe that AI won't devalue them, or
3. Perhaps you want to indicate that their jobs are going to be decimated anyway, thus they shouldn't be objecting anyway.
Which is it?
The ridiculous techno optimism on HN always confused me. No nobody is getting their electronic waifus and UBI.
1 reply →
I must have been unclear. My point is 3.
I, and they (they said that AI would devalue their skills) think that their jobs are going to be decimated by AI.
They can stop AI in the US, but how are they gonna prevent China from making their jobs redundant with AI? Even if they put enormous tariffs on China, they would still lose all business outside of the US. In the best scenario, after some recession they could stagnate if they stay isolated while productivity in the rest of the world explodes.
>It's also really odd that you think they'll get anything in return. What makes you think this? Has this ever happened in the past, in the US, when too-big-too-fail companies laid off all their staff? This unwarranted optimism is the stuff of science fiction.
Don't you see the long term trend in every society to increase public spending to support their population more and more over the last 100 years?
I do not think it is in the interest of the AI overlords to have a revolution, but of course there are reasons to be fearful. Yet again, stopping AI in the US will not stop AI in the rest of the world, there is an arm race going on, one that seems almost impossible to stop, unfortunately.
There are very good reasons to call for more regulations and prevent data centers from being built too close to residential areas, or not using renewables, or plenty of other reasons. But being opposed to every data center because you are afraid for your job seems like a mistake to me. Unless you can prevent all of the world from using AI, in that case yes, it does make sense, I just think it is impossible.
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