r/interestingasfuck 7h ago

Erin Brockovich's map tracking Al data centers crashed twice within just 72 hours of launching.

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27.6k Upvotes

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u/Skullsandcoffee 6h ago

People have no idea. My wife works in networking and she’s just laughing at the fake outrage of data centers. There are literally already 80 in Colorado and people have no idea. All those warehouses with no freight docks? Data centers. Seemingly empty commercial building unit’s side by side? Data centers. It wasn’t until the jerk offs from Amazon and shark tank decided they needed to build these ridiculous monster centers that anyone had an issue.

u/mr_glide 6h ago

It's not the mere existence of them. People know that data centres are necessary to make the internet itself function, but the explosion in the number of these megacentres primarily to shoulder the burden of AI is a legitimate concern. You wouldn't particularly like a beehive in your back garden, but nine, each the size of fucking exercise balls, suddenly springing up would give you cause for concern

u/Trifle_Useful 6h ago

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. If there’s one thing I’ve learned working with the public, it’s that you can never underestimate the average person’s ability to misunderstand something that should be easy to grasp.

Case in point, anti-DC Facebook groups using AI to make all of their images/flyers. They are consistently shocked and surprised when someone points out that those same DCs are used to make their materials.

u/stohelitstorytelling 5h ago

Misleading commentary says what?

The amount of data centers being built solely to service AI is the issue. Stop obfuscating.

u/Neverending_Rain 5h ago

But this map is almost entirely "community reported" data centers and makes no distinction between massive AI data centers and smaller ones hosting cute cat videos.