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US east coast could see rolling blackouts as data centers strain the electric grid
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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The thing is, we didn't need data centers for what AI is already doing. And if AI is going to replace animal testing; it won't be an LLM that does it, it'll be a more specialized application of machine learning. Its model will be trained on the human genome, or on molecular biology, rather than language, and that kind of machine learning was already around before LLMs. And again. You don't need even one data center to do that, much less do you need one or more in every state. The whole model could be run in a single cabinet.
Remember that LLMs can't create anything new, they can't even really verify their own reasoning, they can only emulate what already exists by amalgamating whatever it was trained on in whatever way is most likely to please the user.
The way these data centers are being quickly and quietly rammed through; I think they will more likely serve the surveillance state (see palantir) than they will push forward medical technology.
Neither does burying our heads in the sand on what imperial capital is building out this technology to do? Sitting around talking on a social forum about any given topic isn't likely to solve anything, that's not what we're here to do in the first place. Yes it would be great if AI solved animal testing. It would be great if it solved mechanized unicorns that shoot out rainbow dust. Perhaps under communism we could develop it to do those things.
But that's not the system we live under, nor is that primary motivation for the powers that are developing it, nor does it account for the vast majority of the adverse effects that are already taking shape. That is what we are resisting when we resist these data centers.
You seem to be taking this weird slippery nihilistic "no ethical consumption under capitalism" angle to say, what exactly? The data centers, water consumption and water contamination, new expansion of fossil fuels, insufficient power infrastructure, data collection and surveillance, and so on; that's all okay actually and we should just let it happen because of blind optimism that there might be some positive side effects after the fall of capitalism?
The forces of capital would not be banking literally their entire future on this if it wasn't a massive expansion of their power. How are we "solving the core issue" by letting imperial capital expand its dominance in this way, not only handwringing about putting up any kind of fight but actually daydreaming about how this expansion could actually maybe hopefully solve our ethical dilemmas for us like the good salesmen are saying it will?
Ok? Again, this seems like a non-sequitur and you're just avoiding having to actually consider the ethics and political reality at play here because there's a specific thing you want out of it.
You can't fix the problems with AI or datacenters until you change the system you live under. Opposing their construction is like putting a band aid on your measles outbreak. You literally will not be able to stop their build out if what you are saying is true. My point here is that there is no alternative than overthrowing capitalism, all the whining on Lemmy will do less than fucking nothing. I guess I do have some optimism that they will be able to solve problems with computers, and I think that a non capitalist organization can solve all the problems you mentioned. Go ahead and do your liberal opposition and fail.
Some nebulous idea of "we have to overthrow capitalism" is far less useful than you think it is. An organized movement to carry such a thing out, which is built through rallying around specific issues; like the build out of AI and data centers, ICE, war, whatever it is that effectively lies bare the contradictions inherent to one's life under capitalism and drives folks to organize; is the actual action that comes from "all the whining" that you are currently whining about.
Excuse your nihilism however you want but your feelings are not reality and are every bit as useless as you're trying to portray the resistance to data centers is. What you're doing here is rejecting the revolutionaries for the revolution... you can't just skip to the fun part without having done the work to get there.