On Data Centers and AI
Also, The Matrix, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings
Data Centers and AI are like The Force: they can be used for Good or for Ee-vil.
E.g, I’m on the board of a community health center, and have heard hints of the good uses to which AI is being put in healthcare. But these entities are reproducing like viruses in a business environment that tolerates the co-existence of billionaires with the hungry, under-educated, and sick; an environment that is collapsing from the accelerating rush into climate change; and an environment that gives preference to short-term profit over every other concern.
This is true of every industry, business, and undertaking, not just AI and data centers. There are about 5000 data centers in the US already, and you can search high and low – use AI to do so if you like – to find ANY community that’s glad to have them. When one is proposed, we’re told about the jobs and revenue that a data center will bring. But away from such sales pitches we hear about how good AI will be for every Fortune 500 company – precisely because it will allow them to reduce labor costs. In other words, as data centers employ dozens, they will UN-employ hundreds, or thousands. THAT is where the ROI will come from. THAT is the benefit being touted away from the sales pitches. Which is great for you if you’re at the top of the heap of a country running on Social Darwinism instead of one with a social contract.
We need a temporary restraining order until a couple of things are in place and given time to work the kinks out before proceeding.
First, institute a Universal Basic Income. This will send a message that we are moving on from a business policy of predation. EVERY person, without exception, should know that they live in a country in which they will never lack for the basics of life: food, shelter, education, and medical care. It’s not about who you are as a person, or what you deserve, but about who we are as a people, and our commitment to leave no one hungry, homeless, or sick, period. It’s not about weighing your worth, but insisting on our basic decency.
Second, require that every company – not just AI- and data-center-related companies – transition to B Corp status. Most corporations are C Corps, which requires that everything else takes a back seat to profit and ROI for shareholders. (NOT stakeholders: share holders.) An economy devoted to C Corps creates an world where cooperation and consideration are simply not permitted to encroach on the demands of the highest possible profits. B Corps don’t deny the necessity of profit, but they give equal footing to the well-being of people and planet. Competition and cooperation need each other like breathing in and breathing out do, like birds need left and right wings. A B Corp that provides or benefits from AI will not do so at the expense of its community, employees, or customers, but in service to them. Shouldn’t every business have always been run that way? Data center sales pitches promise they’ll be good for our communities, right? They should have no objection to being obligated to living up to that promise.
If we were to ask 500 blue collar working folks for the top ten things they wish they had access to in their hometown, not one of them would say, “What we really need is a data center in this town.” They might talk about safety and good schools for their kids; dignity and security for their elders; some slim hope of getting out from under mountains of debt (credit cards charge 20%+ interest now; that used to be not just illegal, but universally recognized as immoral); maybe more parks, or places to gather with friends and family after work; stability of costs like housing and utilities; good, stable jobs that pay well enough to set some aside after paying bills. But not data centers.
Not one of those 500 would say that what they really need are a few more billionaires, increased surveillance of everything we do – and computers that can make rude cartoons or deceptive pictures or videos on demand. Especially when data centers befoul our water, raise utility prices, and generate a persistent, unending drone reminiscent of the industries of Mordor.
Banning the construction of data centers for, say, 5 or 10 years will not cost us anything we need – 5000 of them should hold us for now – while giving us time to see if those 5000 are needed in the first place, and time to take care of what we might call deferred maintenance. Let’s solve climate change, keep utility costs down, build a society that leaves nobody hungry, sick, or homeless, and change the business culture so it’s no longer illegal for companies to be good to their employees and customers as well as their owners.