What Every American Should Know about Data Centers

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: we're essentially building the digital prison of the future a system that knows you better [00:00:04] Speaker 2: than you know you why do we need to bury family farms and make fortunes for some people and steal fortunes from other people it doesn't make sense get out of the way you work for us blissfully [00:00:19] Speaker 3: ignorant of local politics until microsoft showed up in my backyard but i wanted to talk about how [00:00:25] Speaker 1: we are using an israeli cyber security company to monitor all employee communications [00:00:34] Speaker 4: i think ai will probably like most likely sort of lead to the end of the world lead to the end of the [00:00:39] Speaker 5: world that creepy quote is from big tech ceo sam altman whose company open ai is one of the biggest names in artificial intelligence folks when you look around the country it appears the majority of citizens are against data centers moving into their town whether through song not here not [00:00:58] Speaker 6: anywhere protests against an ai data center in union county new jersey yet despite this there [00:01:04] Speaker 5: are hundreds of them springing up around the nation now here's what big tech executives are telling us on why we should be welcoming data centers into our communities we are going to be the dominant player [00:01:14] Speaker 7: or china's going to be the dominant player and there will just be very different rules depending on who wins powering the ai revolution while also advancing a more reliable affordable and clean power grid [00:01:28] Speaker 4: everybody's chat gpt everybody gets it for free and everybody has access to just this like crazy thing such that everybody can be more productive make way more money ai is the biggest technical things [00:01:39] Speaker 5: ever in my lifetime i mean it is so profound however for many americans there is a growing suspicion that they will be the ones to foot the bill for this endeavor while big tech rakes in the reward and profits and if this data center bet goes wrong the downsides could be catastrophic it could mean the destruction of our drinking water supply the collapse of our already weakened electrical grids massive price hikes on our monthly utility bills and giving the government the power of extreme mass surveillance and the list goes on so with much on the line i decided to travel across the country to understand this data center tsunami that is coming our way so let's begin but first a quick word from the sponsor of today's episode folks for this documentary we've been on the road a lot of road trips in wisconsin and multiple states to all make this happen and sometimes being on the road makes making documentaries difficult let me pull over and show you guys what i'm talking about so if i'm just on the road and all i have is my laptop when i'm working with really big files like when we got these covert shots of the data center in texas using any desk because i can use my laptop as a portal to go into the work computer and operate from there which makes things easy or another scenario i want to see the footage of the town hall where a lot of people are really angry about data centers well it's on my gal's computer so i can use any desk from my laptop to go into his and now i can access that file and start getting to work one thing that's cool about any desk is they work with a lot of anti-scammer channels like scammer payback and jim brownie the capabilities any desk has can help me in my operation whatever mission you are on back home watching this if there's something that can help it is free for personal use and they have custom pricing options if you are a business click my link in the description to get started we gotta hit the road here there's so much you gotta see this data center story is huge [00:03:19] Speaker 8: and you gotta learn all about it let's get to it right now microsoft is building a massive new ai data center right here in wisconsin a project that could soon impact all of us we're pulling into wisconsin farmhouse [00:03:32] Speaker 5: that has been negatively impacted by this nearby data center and we're going to get their story and just remember what's happening to this family could happen to you happen to your family members that live out in the country i think rural people are being disproportionately affected by this crisis folks a data center is a massive industrial warehouse filled with thousands of computer servers that store and process digital information these facilities serve as the backbone of the internet making everything from streaming video to now artificial intelligence possible and to begin this episode we visit farmers in beaver dam wisconsin where almost a stone's throw away from their house meta began building a billion dollar data center and well that's when the trouble began to start nice to meet you thanks for having us good to see you guys charlie barron is a beloved wisconsin comedian and emmy-winning journalist who has been traveling the state and speaking at rallies to help locals fight against data centers today we join forces in beaver dam how long has this been in the family [00:04:30] Speaker 9: it's been in the frank family since 1974. this farm has been established here for over 150 years when did you notice something was amiss in this house the main thing was probably right around the end of february you know we're turning on the faucets the water is kind of discolored it's not real great then we had nothing nothing for water we got someone out to take a look at the the well and then they declared it a dry well you know you're looking at either digging that well deeper or digging a whole new well which could run you 20 to 25 000 depending on how deep you need to go folks let's look at the scale of data center [00:05:07] Speaker 5: water usage a single large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of water a day which is equivalent to the daily water consumption of a town of 50 000 people also roughly two-thirds of all new data centers being constructed are located in regions facing severe water shortages in fact some of our key countries water basins are at risk the colorado river which 40 million people depend on is being targeted by data centers despite the river already being in the midst of a two-decade drought the water levels of the great salt lake in utah are so low that residents are scared they will be facing dust storms and in wisconsin where developers say they will funnel heated data center wastewater back into lake michigan people are concerned that these elevated water temperatures may destroy the local ecosystems so for many these risks to our fresh water supplies don't seem to be worth it tell me in the comments what you think at this point are you worried about quality of your own drinking water we've [00:05:58] Speaker 9: stopped drinking our water who do you call in this situation i don't know you know we started out with our local city council who seems to have no interest in anything that's going on in this township have you tried contacting a lawyer yeah my husband did some calling around and there wasn't a single one that wanted to talk to us about any of this why do you think that is does anybody want to take on a billion dollar you know [00:06:20] Speaker 10: another microsoft data center possibly coming to southeast wisconsin for the last several months the village of caledonia board's been discussing proposals for a data center there prescott bulge [00:06:31] Speaker 3: i live in caledonia i was part of the group that pushed back on the microsoft data center in caledonia not because we're opposed to development and we're in favor of maintaining the beauty and and rural nature of this of this village the first thing that you notice when you look at these proposals is every single one of them is in a small town they're doing that because the land is cheap and they can find proximity to power which is the key attribute a small town is no match for a fortune 50 company when it comes to negotiating terms and many of these small towns are desperate for some growth they're desperate for some economic activity and they get wined and dined and shown big giant numbers that they can only dream of and they just want to figure out how to make the best deal as fast as possible get it approved and start reaping the rewards across the country we are hearing reports of [00:07:24] Speaker 5: people being distressed by the noise that these data centers are making from wisconsin that's just a high kind of high pitched drone sound i can hear it inside my house and that's what concerns me to mississippi [00:07:36] Speaker 8: for months now this is the sound communities near the plant here to arizona neighbors say you'll start [00:07:43] Speaker 5: to hear a really irritating noise that you can't ever unhear this constant noise is driving some people crazy and it has another sick side effect it makes it nearly impossible for people to sell their homes because at the end of the day who would want to live next to a data center that puts out a relentless 24 7 hum it makes me feel like we just don't matter your well that you've lived on for decades it goes dry another company that moved in that doesn't even live here gets the access it's feeling really really israeli in tactic to me the water is what keeps a family going and if we're willing to knock that off for families we even sign ourselves up for after all if we don't have water what do we have to live [00:08:23] Speaker 11: my name is ben green i'm an assistant professor at the university of michigan school of information and the ford school of public policy so data centers use a lot of water primarily for cooling you know developers will talk about things like closed loop systems i think that does reduce the water use of the cooling what i've seen is more than half of the water use of a data center is not directly in the cooling but is in the generation of the electricity in a power plant that is then used to power the data center provide the electricity for it and as these spurred up around the country and [00:08:56] Speaker 5: more and more of them grow what are the potential implications on our water supply of this these [00:09:01] Speaker 11: data centers are just generally draining the water supply and could lead to issues where you know there's not enough water and it's like does does the data center get water first if there's a drought and people are being told to limit their water intake not to water their lawns and so on our data center is actually receiving that same limitation probably not wisconsin is the largest freshwater [00:09:24] Speaker 12: resources of any state in the country and there's a reason data centers are popping up close to these resources is because they need massive massive massive amounts of water and they can use like three to five million gallons of water a day and companies will tout a closed loop cooling system we really don't know what this closed loop cooling system is actually going to mean for water use for these sites or what happens to the water after it's gone through the closed loop [00:09:50] Speaker 1: what is leading you to become a whistleblower some practices that i don't agree with i was [00:09:54] Speaker 5: approached by a whistleblower who has worked with the biggest data center companies in the world including meta and amazon web services because he is still actively employed by one of these tech giants he needed to remain completely anonymous but what he said is chilling we're building the security [00:10:08] Speaker 1: apparatus that spies on every american we're essentially building the digital prison of the future a system that knows you better than you know you do you think we have something to worry about as far as water consumption from the data center yes unfavorable billing practices my company pays close to a quarter million per year in water usage every single day we put almost a hundred thousand gallons of water into the atmosphere and i wanted to talk about how we were using an israeli cyber security company to monitor all employee communications and all of the status of our equipment do you know what company that was the company's name is checkpoint this is checkpoint [00:10:43] Speaker 5: co-founder shlomo kramer he's an israeli cyber security entrepreneur who served in the idf's notorious unit 8200 which is the equivalent of america's nsa and is israel's most elite cyber warfare group here's what he said on national television about free speech in the united states it's time to limit the first amendment in order to protect it this tel aviv-based company is used by every single one of the top 50 companies in the fortune 500 and with kramer's attitude on free speech his direct ties back to unit 8200 and israel stranglehold elsewhere in this country i can't help but feel concerned when a company connected to a foreign spy agency is acting as the cyber security gatekeeper for almost every major corporation in america [00:11:31] Speaker 13: i'm john mazzarella i own and operate coastal crypto it's a data center mining operation facility [00:11:38] Speaker 5: to get the other side of the coin we sit down with john mazzarella he's the owner of coastal crypto a company which repurposes old industrial sites into crypto mining data centers here's what he had to say [00:11:48] Speaker 13: we try to take a different approach to it we saw that there was a lot of abandoned power failing grid systems buildings that were just vacant for years big issue right now with google in my area is how much water they're going to consume and they're saying they're saying it's proprietary information i'm sure some of it's proprietary i don't put that by them but let's open up the doors a little bit why do we need why are we using that so much water what kind of situations are we using with the water because there's water that gets recycled there's water that gets captured there's water that gets evaporated what kind of impact is there water usage actually going to have to that local economy that [00:12:29] Speaker 3: information needs to be divulged the physical building will last nearly forever it's you know concrete and steel and they last a long time they are very unique buildings they're not like warehouses they're not like office buildings they don't have windows they don't have tall ceilings the historical average over the last 40 years is that a data center is good for 15 to 25 years and then the technology change catches up with it and it's not economically viable to retrofit it with the latest the future reuse possibilities are limited i don't think any of these municipalities [00:13:02] Speaker 2: looking into this are thinking about that risk the local political people are enjoying the influx of money and there's a lot of local people who are enjoying the influx of money nobody wants to even hear the local people who are paying the price let's wrap our heads around why despite widespread citizen [00:13:23] Speaker 5: protests local government officials continue to push through data centers one big reason is the absolutely real boom of construction jobs and the other is the pledge of massive tax revenue now in places like loudoun county virginia estimates project that over 1 billion in taxes is coming to the county budget by taxing the servers inside the data centers but for most other towns this gets a little murky you see developers use a loophole called a tiff which is a tax incentive that essentially takes the new promised property taxes and recycles them right back to pay for the data center's own infrastructure so on paper the town looks like it's getting rich but in reality it's not the citizens who benefit it's [00:14:00] Speaker 3: just another tax break for big tech i just want that money so badly i want that revenue i want to be able to get the new construction on my books so that i have a higher valuation so that i can raise taxes for the village and not raise taxes on each individual you know because i've got this big taxpayer providing a big slug of new money but like all things too good to be true because of those risks they're outsized risked [00:14:26] Speaker 5: most of the stories i see about data centers are about citizens losing the fight but then i got wind of news out of tucson arizona where the citizens organized fought back and won this is local leader [00:14:36] Speaker 6: jennifer and she tells us how my name is jennifer allen i am the district 3 supervisor and vice chair of the puma county board of supervisors we had been told on the board of supervisors that there was a project kind of being cooked out called project blue we were not given much information at all not until right up before the vote that we took to approve it we were told that we couldn't get much more information because of a non-disclosure agreement but we were also told that we couldn't talk about it [00:15:04] Speaker 5: because of a non-disclosure agreement another concerning aspect of data centers is the standard practice of imposing ndas that prevent locals from knowing key details that impact their own city for example in the town of the dells in oregon google built massive data centers there and the local government bound by an nda refused to tell the public how much water google was using after a prolonged legal battle and a lawsuit led by the town's local newspaper the oregonian the city was forced to release these records and it turns out that these data centers were using over a quarter of the city's water supply and folks it's stories like this that increase people's paranoia around data centers when on one hand big tech tells us that there's nothing to worry about but on the other hand they silence local officials and keep the usage around town resources secret from the very people [00:15:48] Speaker 6: that live there we sat in near silence and in in the dark until beale the developer of project blue gave a more comprehensive-ish presentation to the board when it was first proposed was going to be a water-cooled system meaning they were just going to keep pumping water tens of thousands of gallons of water every day we're a desert we live in a beautiful desert a lush desert but it is a desert no less with increasingly extreme heat with longer periods of drought we simply cannot sustain water hungry [00:16:27] Speaker 2: industries like data centers our water situation here is vastly different than it used to be our property values are probably actively tanking as we stand here and talk but you look around here there's no standing water anywhere drive to fond du lac and look in the fields on your way back towards green bay [00:16:45] Speaker 5: there's water everywhere does it feel like a hostile takeover of your own land and water it feels like a hostile [00:16:51] Speaker 2: takeover of my township why do we need to bury family farms and make fortunes for some people and steal fortunes from other people so cats can wear hats it doesn't make sense so while farmers [00:17:05] Speaker 5: in beaver dam are worried about their wells running dry due to meta's data center 90 miles away in mount pleasant wisconsin microsoft has moved in and prescott explains how locals are worried about a massive tax [00:17:16] Speaker 3: increase coming their way mount pleasant puts a billion dollars of new valuation on their books which equals 17 percent increase in their total valuation that meant they could raise their taxes 17 percent well they chose to only raise it eight percent and then hid that increase behind some other line item reductions to sort of hide it from the community members the developer of the data center does not start contributing to that general fund until that tax increment district is closed out microsoft in the case of mount pleasant is not paying a dime towards that eight percent increase that is coming on the backs of every [00:17:53] Speaker 2: person in mount pleasant if we don't start standing up for what is right this is going to continue forever [00:18:00] Speaker 1: until it's too late they're operating as a business they have a lot of negotiating power when they're choosing these sites and they get tax exemptions when they do so they're not playing by the rules that you [00:18:09] Speaker 2: and i have to play by that's what the water looks like and if the mayor of beaver dam wants to come drink it she can at this point it's completely contaminated for sure so all this sand just came out of [00:18:22] Speaker 13: that faucet yeah and that never happened before no anybody want to drink what you see here is sand [00:18:31] Speaker 5: and sediment in scott's water and if you've seen aoc's viral clip talking about georgia drinking water [00:18:36] Speaker 14: you've seen this before this is what the drinking water now looks like next to that data center and i think both of us can agree that neither one of these things are drinkable for people near data [00:18:46] Speaker 5: centers this can happen and it's for two main reasons first is the heavy construction shaking up the local water table and second is because of the vacuum-like pressure that comes when a data center is sucking millions of gallons of the town's water supply now sand is obviously bad but for those even more unlucky they're worried about losing their water supply altogether [00:19:10] Speaker 15: how long have you been out of a job it's probably been about a good year and how long did you work on the data center about four going on five years five wow so this this project has been in development for a [00:19:22] Speaker 16: long time yeah it was all over the newspapers before they were even here you know just because everybody was so excited because it was bringing jobs and work and just things like that it does [00:19:36] Speaker 15: bring jobs initially but as soon as it's done and built yeah then it's kind of yeah and so it's built [00:19:42] Speaker 16: functioning and there's no more it basically runs itself and you don't need that many people you know after you build everything how well did they pay people to work on this project at first it was barely like 14 15 as of now they pay pretty people pretty good because they don't have as many people there's water plentiful in these parts you can see they've almost dried out this section of the [00:20:07] Speaker 5: lake right here folks behind me right now is the body of water that cools these data centers and if you look over here this is a lake that five years ago was full and now it is dried up and i think it's fair to ask ourselves and be afraid are these water sources going to be dried up in five years 10 years and what are the implications on our everyday life when that happens will we be regulated to showering on tuesdays thursdays saturdays while these data companies get full usage of our water will this clean water turn into toxic water will it creep through into our aquifers and water tables and at what cost to the average person will these operations have and the problem is is that when you try and dig into these matters oftentimes these are classified things protected by nda's because it's company secret company information and we as the people i think have a right to know what direction this is headed especially if it's our water supply then one of the most basic things that we need to live folks it may sound like i'm being overly dramatic but you have to know what is happening behind closed doors across the country data centers are making extremely lopsided secretive deals with local governments that border on predatory in many of these arrangements data centers lock in massive water and power contracts that are shielded from the public eye and because they get special wholesale rates mega corporations often pay less for water and power than you do in your own town some states like wisconsin are fighting back and requiring data centers to cover their costs but in most cases citizens pay the price like in virginia where electricity prices have increased by over 267 percent in the last five years does the town feel like this is a benefit to the community as far as [00:21:48] Speaker 16: having a job maybe how do you feel about all this i kind of got a sore spot in my throat for it because of what i went through but then when i was you know making money with them you know it was a good [00:22:00] Speaker 5: thing a lot of americans we fear that with this ai growth and this data center growth that a lot of jobs will be replaced with ai leaving a lot of people jobless while we have these really rich people [00:22:15] Speaker 16: at the top getting even more rich well i could believe it because at this point if you're not building more like they are it basically runs itself and the only thing you have to do is maintenance [00:22:27] Speaker 5: one of the biggest red flags is that we the people are going to be screwed by these deals yes your [00:22:32] Speaker 1: water bill will go up about 100 percent over a period of time there's five years probably about five years but the data center will pay the same amount every year for their water usage and power usage [00:22:43] Speaker 12: because they're viewed as essential these are the richest people in the world i mean we're talking about larry ellison in port washington who's the second richest man on earth how did these folks end up [00:22:52] Speaker 17: getting reserved spots if they're not media that's the scene there hundreds of trucks moving tons of dirt it's the sound port washington residents have been listening to 24 7 work being done day and night [00:23:04] Speaker 10: we own this building we're the taxpayers hey you work for us what you are seeing is concerned [00:23:11] Speaker 5: citizens trying to attend their city council meeting about data centers but being told there's not enough room so instead they are pushed off into a separate area with no face-to-face contact with [00:23:20] Speaker 13: the city decision makers is it full in there yes and in one of the last port washington meetings [00:23:26] Speaker 5: local resident christine was forcibly removed by police [00:23:33] Speaker 18: a port washington city council meeting turned into a shouting match ending with the three people arrested on tuesday all of it because of a recently approved data center get out of the way [00:23:46] Speaker 3: we cannot wait for all of you but we will try and speak for you this is outrageous yeah thank you [00:23:54] Speaker 19: at this point the question is not whether opposition exists it clearly does the question is whether this council is willing to acknowledge risk accept responsibility and change course when [00:24:06] Speaker 20: warranted i don't want to be hyperbolic but i genuinely believe these the data centers and ai in and of itself could potentially be cataclysmic economically like the people of port washington are immensely frustrated as millions of americans are across the country because we don't want these technocrats swooping into our communities to steal all of our resources so that they can eventually take our jobs we don't have the ability to live the american dream it's essentially been stolen from us all of these issues kind of compound on one another and it's leading to to a generation of apathetic disillusioned and frankly disinterested individuals who don't want to be members of a democratic society anymore it's like [00:24:42] Speaker 12: 15 billion dollars into this port washington data center to create what 100 jobs by my calculations if [00:24:48] Speaker 3: port washington takes the full amount of the new construction their taxes will increase 50 percent the city taxes will increase fifty five zero percent over the course of the next probably seven seven or eight years i think you should tell people that like tell people that's your plan and then see how excited [00:25:07] Speaker 21: they are about it amanda mueller lives a half mile from the site right now it's very bright we call it [00:25:13] Speaker 9: the land of the midnight sun you can't see the stars anymore city officials say working overnight means the [00:25:18] Speaker 21: build out will be done and the city will see tax benefits sooner but this group isn't holding their breath [00:25:24] Speaker 6: hundreds of people just started showing up and and expressing lots of concerns about the use of water and energy and the costs and that momentum just kept growing and growing and they were successful in getting the city of tucson to back out and to agree not to annex the property which meant that beal was stuck with our 290 acres and all this plan that they had cooked up just fell flat knowing what we know now yeah i wish we'd had all of those things in place before so that we would have had greater opportunity to stop the project a lot more information a lot more transparency and just tools for community to [00:26:02] Speaker 5: be involved and draw the line initially when we interviewed jennifer out in tucson it was a victory story the people had shut down and the city council had shut down a data center coming to town but i just saw an update that the arizona corporation commission is trying to push it through despite the will of the people and so it's not looking like a victory for the people it's looking like a victory for big tech we'll see how the story continues what are the revenue streams from a [00:26:28] Speaker 1: data center they are humongous so for example if i plug in one server to another that is 300 per month from that just one fiber connection now there are millions of fiber connections inside of every single data center the numbers are so large that you can't even comprehend how much money it is right now [00:26:48] Speaker 5: all over the country big tech is offering individual farmers tens of millions of dollars for their land and spending billions on construction and you might be wondering how will they be making all this money back because yes they make subscription money by charging people 20 bucks a month for chat gbt or they sell massive corporations ai software packages and this does bring in a good chunk of change but in reality this money does not make a dent in what they are currently spending essentially these tech companies are making a giant gamble to become the ai superpower of the future which to them is a trillions of dollars winner takes all race and if this bet does not pay off the crash of this ai bubble will be felt globally in fact some experts warn that a collapse would wipe out as much of 33 trillion in market value and this would plunge the stock market by as much as 40 to 60 percent yikes what do you see as the biggest misconceptions that a lot of people who are up in [00:27:39] Speaker 13: arms have about these data centers again it's educating on these smaller details you know internet i'm not tapping into the town's you know fiber line and bringing in my own i'm not pulling residual power from the town i'm you know increasing the consumption of power for the town or i'm increasing the grid structure so i'm not stealing anything i'm not taking away from somebody that could use it you know i'm trying to bring more infrastructure and stability to a grid system or a network system or a community that [00:28:06] Speaker 22: needs jobs what what comes to your mind when you see all this i mean a big metaphor a huge metaphor a giant hulking carcass of a metaphor of industry that used to be built by american workers by men using their hands with skills trades and obviously this was built by workers but now you know we're talking to one of them they kind of got discarded there's a bunch of reporting on how they promised [00:28:30] Speaker 1: 300 jobs and actually wound up hiring 14. these billion dollar facilities only employ 100 people some of them security staff some of them janitorial staff but they will claim that they bring a thousand jobs or more to the area per building but that's not the case they use contractors that travel from outside the locality and all of these jobs are not permanent jobs their main workforce is the minor [00:28:52] Speaker 16: maintenance what i was saying once the computers go down they bring them in in racks and they just [00:28:57] Speaker 22: refurbish them and how long until it's robots maintaining them how long until it's like a tesla bot just walking around just changing racks checking switches and you probably could automate that like a a car like an assembly line if this giant carcass of a building isn't the perfect metaphor for what's happening all around america with these data centers i don't know what is [00:29:25] Speaker 5: kaiser you've been looking in this extensively for the last three or four years tell me about that so it [00:29:30] Speaker 23: used to be warehouses kind of it started with development in bensonville illinois kaiser runs a [00:29:36] Speaker 5: youtube channel called stringer media and he's been spending the last few years going around the country covering communities that have been taken over by data centers today we see what microsoft has done in [00:29:45] Speaker 23: mount pleasant wisconsin essentially a warehouse developer bought all of these people's homes perfectly nice houses one day they're there next they're gone you go from a functioning community to an industrial wasteland yeah yeah everybody's just gone so i could i could take you to a street [00:30:01] Speaker 5: that's been bought out to me what i think of when i look at a place like this is look a nice little yard kids could play in the prairie there was a bird feeder there was a family here that had a great time but we're in a time where a lot of people are economically pinched and if you come to someone's doorstep and offer them way over market a lot of people are in a position where they kind of have to take it or they feel like that's their their ticket to a future in america and like i think if we were in more prosperous times or the middle class was stronger the data centers wouldn't have as much luck as they are emptying out these neighborhoods as they are right now yeah i've heard that a lot most of [00:30:35] Speaker 23: these houses were older people it's a lot of money you know they probably had these houses before even the highway was here these warehouses and data centers might be abandoned along the line maybe [00:30:45] Speaker 5: they're obsolete actually a pretty likely option is that we're gonna be left with these giant shelves of buildings that in most of these agreements the companies are not responsible for taking care of and it's going to be the people that have to deal with them and they're not easy spaces to convert into [00:30:58] Speaker 23: human spaces again it's one of those gold rushes you know everyone's trying to hop on the money just do as much as they can and eventually maybe it'll die down or something like that and then what are you left with just destroyed nature and empty buildings some people might say if you're against [00:31:17] Speaker 5: data centers you're against progress and that's anti-american i mean there's a strong current of [00:31:22] Speaker 11: that but i i disagree i think it's very american to want to say you know we we don't want to just have monopolistic overlords we care about our communities we want to have local community voice is very important very american ai is being dominated and develop developed by a handful of companies that do not care about the public interest and so the types of ai they're going to develop are not going to be utopian things they're going to you know develop tools that are not very helpful that put a lot of put workers out of jobs kind of poisoning kids brains stopping people from learning some people might call that innovation but to me that's just that's just bad look the average american [00:32:03] Speaker 12: should be locked into the to what ai and what data centers are going to do in their lives i think 30 million jobs in the coming years that we're going to see lost from ai keep an eye on your community zoning um what i'll say is these there there are little signs or signals that will pop up when data [00:32:16] Speaker 13: centers are about to move in follow elon musk at all he's he's all about data centers going to space so i'm all for it if that's the case if that's where they go 100 but you're still going to need some kind of position on earth for them to be transmitting the data back and forth biggest advice or recommendation i can give to anybody is just do your research if i have the answers i'll try to answer them if i don't have the answers i'll help you research them myself hopefully form up an opinion [00:32:41] Speaker 5: based on fact not emotion i am really nervous watching this data center story develop it feels like it's out of control but i do have to say i am a bit of a hypocrite because i use ai day to day i use it to edit my writing i use it to source research it's truly an amazing tool but to me it's key that this is done sustainably we have to prioritize people their homes their communities their resources first before big tech and right now it feels like big tech is just getting the seat at the table and we the people are shunted off to the side and our leaders both local and national don't give a shit about us it's a troubling trend because right now they're trying to keep ai from being regulated for 10 years with the big beautiful bill and that could be disastrous and i don't know about you but i want a world that not only are you and me proud to live in but that we can give to our kids that is our duty we need to do that and to think that's even something that we might not do is outrageous so i look at history i look at presidents like teddy roosevelt that made the national parks that love nature and went after big business when it was necessary and i look at what's happening in current day and it feels like we're dealing with people that don't even go outside don't smell flowers don't touch grass and don't care about our kids future and i don't like that at all so we have to fight guys you have to organize locally you have to get informed and we can win this battle because just remember the the bugs life movie the ants outnumber the grasshoppers so always keep hope keep that in mind keep fighting the good fight and i'll see you next week peace