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There are upsides to the rise of AI. There are also many downsides. Today’s show gets into the increase in data centers popping up across the nation.

“There are a lot of downsides to it that have to be managed; otherwise, I am not proud. If you are going to destroy society and don't have a plan for that, then I am anti. If you are going to destroy the job market and therefore destroy society, I am anti,” Gerald A said. “There are also a lot of potential benefits and a lot that have already been realized that have been brought by the advancement of AI and related technologies.”

You may have heard about the doomsday predictions and headlines regarding the data centers. On the other side of the spectrum, you may have heard that AI will save the world from all of its problems, implementing a so-called utopia.

There are also many claims being made that deserve to be looked at or debunked. One of these claims, made by Kevin O’Leary, is that the CCP is funding anti-data center protests. The verdict on this statement is mixed, as on the face of it, it is not an outrageous claim, as several CCP-linked individuals have engaged in anti-data center messaging.

It is not wrong to make an overall claim that China would do anything to overtake the United States in the AI race; but local opposition appears to be largely grassroots in nature. O’Leary has implied that groups, including one specifically opposing his investments in Utah, are tied to Chinese influence. According to the organizers of the group, however, this could not be further from the truth, as nearly everyone invested in the opposition is an American citizen.

“It’s insulting to Utahns across the state to say that any opposition or protest to this data center is the work of a foreign government. We are proud to live in a state where there are people who deeply care about transparency, their community and their kids’ futures,” organizer Elizabeth Hutchings said. “Utahns deserve answers and input into the data center - a goal with which Kevin says he agrees. So perhaps he should put less time into reading publicly available documents as though that’s deep research,’ and focus a bit more on answering the public’s questions."

“This broad claim that China does not want us to win the race, and then these people must be funded by Chinese money,” is not rooted in evidence.

“Their interest could happen to align, so make sure you have evidence when you make these claims, and it does not seem like he did, especially for these specific organizations,” Gerald A said.

Another charge made is regarding the amount of water being used, and how much they pollute the environment.

According to EESI, “The potential negative impacts of data center expansion on carbon emissions, water usage, and electricity bills are relatively well documented. But their potential PFAS pollution, both direct and indirect, is less well known.”

The water use for these centers is not as sufficient as normal server farms. According to Mordor, “Facilities optimized for AI model training consume 10-50 times more cooling water than traditional server farms. Microsoft disclosed 1.7 billion gallons of water use in 2022, a 34% jump tied to GPU clusters, while Google’s Iowa campus registered 980 million gallons in 2023.”

However, new closed-loop recycled water systems use less water by up to 70%. O’Leary’s project will use this system. His data center will also generate its own power.

“They are trying to do this in an environmentally friendly way,” Gerald A said. “At the very least, with all of the information they have released, they are saying they are going to do whatever they can so it does not hurt the environment, and it is up to the public to decide if that is enough.”

There has also been a lot of fear-mongering regarding the rise in utility bills. The verdict on this is mostly true.

“I hate fear-mongering. " I don't want to have some fictitious threat so that we overreact,” Gerald A said.

According to a report by Bloomberg, “Electricity now costs as much as 267% more for a single month than it did five years ago in areas located near significant data center activity.” The problem with this is that the outlet pulled data from 2020-2024. This is an issue because ChatGPT did not come online until the end of 2022.

“They are pulling a bunch of years that could have impacted the price of electricity,” Gerald A said. “The fact is, you will see some increases in energy prices, but we need to figure out what that number really is.”

According to a report from CMU, “data center growth could increase electricity bills 8% nationally and as much as 25% in some regional markets.”

“That is a big number, but it is not 250%. So it matters what these numbers are, and in a lot of cases it is not 25% and it is not driven by data centers,” Gerald A said.