Can we just cancel the whole “ai” thing? It was fun for a bit, now it’s just problems.
This isn’t AI, but datacenters in general. EU stuff tends to accumulate in Ireland.
Ireland’s boom in datacentres and tech companies has been fuelled by its policy of low corporate taxation.
Of course it’s not only ai, but the article’s subhead: “Statistics raise concerns that rise in demand for data processing driven by AI could derail climate targets”
More AI you say? Can do!
I have had this argument with my politically minded friends. These are not all that bad. Ireland has an ever increasing percentage of renewables, they provide a high standard of living for their employees and the demand exists regardless of where we put them.
Some moved to block these, and so they would exist somewhere else. The only difference would be that place might have less renewables and Ireland loses opportunity for high income positions.
I’m not saying what anything in your post is wrong. I would like to add, though, that there’s a housing crisis in Ireland, and I know half a dozen tech workers that can’t afford their own apartment. Just saying.
Absolutely there is, the housing crisis is a result of long term failures by government. While it may be exasperated by refugees and asylum seekers, the system should have allowed for this but it did not even allow for natural population growth.
There has been a 20 year under delivering of residential housing. The government has failed to stop large funds buying up large swathes of new developments to rent out or sit on.
There are very simple solutions that could be immediately implemented like banning Airbnb, banning, corporate residential ownership, increasing taxes on multiple homes and introducing a meaningful derelict/unused home tax.
The problem is the governments pensions funds are tied to the real estate market and the level of taxation on other forms of investment has left property as the main viable option.
Commercial zoning is different, not entirely unrelated but the datacentres are not competing with residential property developers.
Date centers need a rule that says they can only run off renewable energy.
Why does the rule need to be specific to data centers? Why not just try to encourage renewable energy in general?
I really wonder how much large scale energy production we’d need if every building was required to have solar. I know we’d need some energy storage tech such as batteries but I’m focusing more on the generation part.
Requiring solar is good for certain regions, but it might be better to make this more generic for any renewables especially because there are areas that don’t get a lot of sun.
For instance, California requires all newly constructed homes to have solar installed, but that wouldn’t work too well for places that are mostly cloudy throughout the year, or for places like Alaska.
For whoever’s interested in long form vid essays about likely root cause
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2R8q8GDwZ0
Looks like they have at least one more about Ireland but ive yet to watch that one.
As a tech professional, fuck AI, fuck Neoliberalism, and we need unions:
Businesses use more power than people. They get it cheaper too.
I’m sure they’ll claim it’s not really an issue at all, immediately after jacking our rates up yet another time
Eh, Ireland sheltered a bunch of tax elusion asshole companies, turns out those companies are not looking out for the common good. Not really a surprise.
Still a good bargain, all things considered.
I dont think they do in this case.
Every time there is a power shortage, they tell residential customers they are being wastrels and should turn their lights off…
Same for water.
Well yeah, because industry generates wealth while people’s homes and comforts do not.
Not saying its right of course.
There are some data centres in the UK that use the waste heat to heat the local swimming pool. Seems a good idea, we need compute and we need heat, why not do both at once?
Surely it’s not too much of a stretch to have datacentres contributing to local district heating systems either?
The future is in cold storage!
Hello AI, what do you know about planting tomatoes?
Yes, certainly!..you will find everything we know here 10.2.456 at your local SD card library.
Is this any surprise?
