WWTBAM Bored

I mentioned in another thread that I am reading "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI."

i am reading a section where she is interviewing Brockman and Sutskever-2 of the main TPTB at OpenAI and there has been several paragraphs of how they have faith that AI will solve global warming then I hit this terrifying paragraph.

"Sutskever would later si.t down with New York Times reporter Cade Metz for his book "Genius Makers", which recounts a narrative history of AI development, and says without a hint of satire, "I think it's fairly likely that it will not take too long of a time for the entire surface of the earth to become covered with data centers and power stations." There would be a "Tsunami of computing...almost a natural phenomenon." AGI and thus the data centers needed to support them "would be too useful to not exist."

Sounds just like the vision of the bad guys in CS Lewis's "That Hideous Strength" which is worth reading for the risque ending alone-think a more risque version of the Titterpaited scene in Bambi.

They’re starting to socialize.

An AI-only social network now has more than 1.6M ‘users.’ Here’s what you need to know

A huge debate and concern here in rual Texas is the water and power use of data centers.

I'm not as concerned about the power. We can build the generation capacity and expand the grid but that for the most part consumes water. Actually the increased demand and required reliablity may improve our power grid.

The water is another thing. There are reports of smaller towns having to now ration water where they never had to before, due to the water requirements of a nearby data center. There are at least two data centers planned near me (miles enough away they won't bother me) that based on where they are planned will need to draw water from the same aquifer I use for my well.

My part of my company builds the elelectrical infrastructure for data centers. We are getting into full EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) mode where we would be the full general contractor. It's driving our stock crazy high. So I'm conflicted. But more sided on the anti-data center side, until they resolve the resourcing needs issue.