"They're generating their own electricity and excess power will be put back into the grid"
How are they generating that electricity though? If it's fossil fuels, then that's not very sustainable.
In my country the only real concern is electricity. The main reason we attract data centers is cheap, renewable electricity. Now, if the operators really built their own electricity generation infrastructure, the cost of existing electricity wouldn't matter much. So I suspect the plan is to mostly utilize existing capacity, which will drive prices higher, especially when it's not windy. It's not ordinary citizen that are worried, also companies in other energy-intensive industries have voiced their concern. And those industries tend to employ way more people than data centers ever will.
I think electricity needs of ordinary people and businesses that employ them should always come first. Data center operators should be required to build enough capacity to meet the increase in electricity demand. Otherwise it's just modern day colonialism, exploiting our resources without much local economic benefit.
At least in my organization we simply use the cheapest models. It's possible for a developer to do most of their coding with something like GPT6-Luna for less than 100$ a month with current prices.
I don't know anyone dev spending even 500$ a month on AI, but nearly everyone does use it to write code. And I work a broke public sector organization, not some fancy startup or big tech.
I highly doubt that most code by hand. I work for a big, boring public sector organization that is pretty broke, and even we've had Copilot licenses for a long time. We just use the cheapest models to keep the bill in check.
> Still beats the alternative of corrupt career politicians.
Are you sure? After the covid and position of the scientific community on it's origin it is evident that most scientist are ready to do the exact things that corrupt career politicians are doing, but for free, purely for the love of the game.
For the house burning scenario, a cheap strategy is having one or two old HDD's in USB cases, located somewhere away from your house, in a place you regularly visit and trust security-wise. Then you can just make a habit of dumping the files there whenever visiting. Most important data of mine is safe even if internet goes down and somebody nukes the city I live in, for zero recurring cost.
"LLM clones of eg Photoshop will end up being worthless, like ideas generally. The software will be worthless for the same reason ideas are: they're too easy. Users are hard, software will be (relatively) easy."
I doubt that. If a clone out there offers all the Photoshop's features for free or much lower cost, without additional learning curve, then many professionals will switch to save money.
McDonalds would be gone too if somebody opened a restaurant chain serving similar food for free or 80% lower price. But that's impossible to do profitably, while freeware software has existed for a long, long time.
Photoshop users could switch to GIMP tomorrow. They don't want to.
The many professionals are the ones that could most easily understand how to switch to GIMP, which is free to use. They could save enormous amounts of money. They prefer to spend money and stick with Photoshop instead. That has persisted for a very long time now.
ADHD is a spectrum, not on/off thing. Someone with milder symptoms may do okay without stimulants, and find help from therapy. Those with worse symptoms typically need the stimulants.
Yet people still die in apartment building fires, usually because they panic when there is a fire in another apartment, leave their apartment, and suffocate to the smoke. And then there are cases where the regulation has failed / not been followed, and the whole building burns down despite best efforts from firefighters.
I've seen all these things happen, even though I live in EU country with strict regulations. I sure sleep better knowing that my apartment has entrance directly to outdoor corridor, and a ladder I can climb down from my balcony if the corridor is somehow blocked. I would never move into a modern apartment building where only escape is through indoor corridors.
I think some guidance is necessary. It's not nice to spend years in university, and then end up unemployed, or working a job that requires no higher education. That is the reality for many young people today.
I will street my children towards something that is at least employable, assuming AI has not completely obliterated job market by then.
How are they generating that electricity though? If it's fossil fuels, then that's not very sustainable.
In my country the only real concern is electricity. The main reason we attract data centers is cheap, renewable electricity. Now, if the operators really built their own electricity generation infrastructure, the cost of existing electricity wouldn't matter much. So I suspect the plan is to mostly utilize existing capacity, which will drive prices higher, especially when it's not windy. It's not ordinary citizen that are worried, also companies in other energy-intensive industries have voiced their concern. And those industries tend to employ way more people than data centers ever will.
I think electricity needs of ordinary people and businesses that employ them should always come first. Data center operators should be required to build enough capacity to meet the increase in electricity demand. Otherwise it's just modern day colonialism, exploiting our resources without much local economic benefit.
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