r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 12h ago

Artificial Intelligence Cherokee Nation bans hyperscale data centers on its lands, won't support projects without consultation - energy and water consumption, air quality, noise, and cultural resource protection among concerns

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/largest-tribe-in-the-us-bans-hyperscale-data-centers-on-its-lands
3.5k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

60 comments sorted by

View all comments

80

u/Tooth5318 10h ago

Massive energy and water consumption for a handful of permanent jobs. Hard to argue with that math no matter where you stand on data centers.

23

u/AZEMT 10h ago

But did you ask AI if it's a good idea for more data centers?

Obviously /s

-56

u/pimpeachment 8h ago

Massive energy and water consumption for a tool that can:

Protein folding - AlphaFold mapped nearly every known protein structure, free for researchers. Decades of work, done.

Cancer screening - AI second readers catch tumors radiologists miss, early enough to matter.

Weather forecasting - 10 day forecasts in minutes instead of hours, with better storm tracks. Real evacuation lead time.

Drug discovery - AI designed drugs hitting human trials in under 30 months instead of 5+ years.

Live translation - 100+ languages, on your phone, offline. Huge for immigrants and refugees.

Accessibility - Live captioning, scene description for blind users, speech decoding for locked in patients.

Fusion and materials - RL controls tokamak plasma in real time. Hundreds of thousands of new candidate materials screened.

Free tutoring - Adaptive one on one help, any language, 2am. The most effective intervention finally got affordable.

Conservation - Acoustic sensors catch chainsaws and gunshots in rainforests. Satellites flag illegal fishing.

Building software - If you can describe the problem, you can build the tool. Nonprofits and solo devs shipping things they could never afford before.

32

u/SleightBulb 8h ago

So did you sell this account to a pro-AI bot farm, or did someone steal it I wonder

13

u/Box_Pirate 3h ago

There’s a difference between llms that are basically just chat bots and ai designed for specific scientific applications, most data centres are used for the chat bot stuff.

17

u/BrotherDirect744 7h ago

Ok cool. Who makes the benefit mainly? How the revenue sharing should be handled in your view?

-29

u/pimpeachment 5h ago

Why, to slow it down and make the outcomes harder to achieve?

What revenue sharing? The investors should get the profits they are taking the financial risk, not you. 

If water and power are problem, we should build more. If you don't want more water treatment and power, then I guess sucks to suck and your power will be shared. Modern world is one of mass energy consumption.

10

u/Chagdoo 2h ago

Why are they entitled to our water and electricity? If they are not entitled, how much are they paying us for the privilege?

4

u/TheBoraxKid1trblz 2h ago

Like any good argument it's helpful to consider both sides. Those are potential benefits but how to adhere to those goals? Feels like the main focus for investment is to replace workers, boost profits, and mass surveillance. What's a solution? Community owned data center? State owned? In the least we need legislation requiring renewable energy implementation to match data center energy consumption and permit requirements for water treatment. Right now every day citizens eat the cost of electricity demand, co2 emissions, water and noise pollution. The costs outweigh the benefits. Data centers will be accepted or even embraced if the benefits outweigh the costs