WEBVTT - Data Vampires with Paris Marx 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:03.600 All Zone Media. 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:08.680 Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host and 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:24.439 the single most punished man alive ed Zetron. Everyone hates me, 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.680 but the people don't hate the man who's joining me today. 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.480 I've got Paris Marks, the host of Tech Won't Save Us, 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.280 the writer of the Disconnect blog, and the actual host 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.440 of the brand new series is about to tell us 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:37.920 about data vampires. Paris, thank you for joining me. 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:40.200 Absolutely, it's so fun to be on the show. 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:43.000 So tell me about the new show. I'm excited. 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.760 Yeah, it's uh, you know, I think everyone has kind 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.720 of been paying attention a bit more to like the energy, 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:52.000 use of data center as a cryptocurrency and all this 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:56.040 kind of stuff, and you know, especially what powers generative AI, 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.400 and you know what's been kind of fueling the hype 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:00.520 for the past two years. And so in this series, 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.040 I wanted to go into why we're actually building so 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:05.600 many data centers, What is behind these things, how much 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.400 energy are they actually using, And on the one hand, 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.560 like the commercial impulses to do this, but also like 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.640 the kind of weird ideological reasons that these people want 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.240 to build these massive AI systems in the first place. 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.360 Relating back to all these like things about AGI and 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.600 you know, trying to make computers with human level intelligence 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:25.200 and all this kind of stuff where they eventually want 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.039 to merge their brains with machines. So it goes into 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:29.800 like the wide range of all these sorts of things 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:31.920 over over for episodes. 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.880 So talk to me about the scale of this. How 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.000 many of these data centers are they building? Like, give 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.480 the audience some idea because it from what I know, 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:42.160 it's not great. 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.720 Yeah, absolutely, and it's quite a lot, right, especially when 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:47.960 you see it scale up over the past number of years. 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.880 So we've seen this like really significant escalation over the 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.680 past five years, in particular in the construction of these 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.360 data centers. So there was something like five hundred or so, 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.280 you know, about five years ago, and now we're looking 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.760 at more like a thousand that were completed by the 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.120 end of or in the early part of twenty twenty four. 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:09.080 We have many more than that now, and we know 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.919 that Microsoft, Amazon, and Google in particular are making these 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.079 huge investments to increase the number of data centers that 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.600 they're building in to build them more quickly. And so 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.200 you know, the thing is some people might listen to 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:23.440 this and say Okay, Yeah, but data centers have been 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.040 around for a long time, and I think that this 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.960 is an important distinction to make, right. Data centers as 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:30.280 we knew them were like a floor in an office 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.720 building that a company was using for their own purposes, 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:36.760 or you know, maybe even a specific room in the 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.760 basement or something. But what we're talking about in particular 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.400 with Amazon, Bikersoft, and Google and this move to the 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.600 cloud and this kind of centralized computation is the hyper 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.360 scale data centers that exist on the scale that is 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.040 so much greater than what we used to have before 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.280 the cloud, and how we've really seen that escalate over 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.520 the past few years in particular. So that is the 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.120 specific problem, right. It's not that we have computation, and 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:01.720 it's not that there is some degree of centralized computation. 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.520 It's the scale that these infrastructures exist. That and then 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:06.760 the question of why we're actually building all these in 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:07.440 the first place. 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.600 So why are we building them? What? Like, what are 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:11.840 they actually putting in there? 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.919 Yeah, And it's an essential point, right, And I think 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:17.799 there are a few different ways to look at it, right, 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.040 Some computation is always going to be necessary for the 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.359 types of things that we're doing online. You know, there's 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.560 there's no question about that, right. I think it's fair 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:28.880 to say that we want some degree of Netflix, we 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.080 want to have easy access to our email, you know, 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:33.200 we want to be able to socialize with one another 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.000 on these various platforms that we use. And I think 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:37.960 that that is totally legitimate and that we should be 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.000 able to do those sorts of things, right. But then 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.480 you ask, okay, but what is really driving this significant 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:45.840 growth that we have been seeing over the past while. 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:48.440 And we see on the one hand, certainly that is 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.880 generative AI. The cryptocurrencies are a little bit separate from 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.160 that because generally that stuff is not being run on 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.960 say like the Amazon, Microsoft and Google servers. Those are 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.720 like specific things I don't even think if they let you, right, 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.520 So these are specific infrastructures being set up by like 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.000 crypto miners and things like that. So it's a little 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:07.760 bit different. But we can still kind of, you know, 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.360 look at the amount of energy use that's being put 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.760 into those sorts of use cases. But the other piece 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.440 that I think that we tend to you know, not 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:17.560 think about so much, especially when we talk so much 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.680 about generative AI, is this sort of you know foundation 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.080 that we have built the Internet on over the past 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.320 number of decades. And for a lot of these companies, 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.640 the business model is collect as much data as possible 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:31.960 so that then we can target ads, and we can 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.960 target product recommendations and all this sort of stuff to you, 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.600 And that like surveillance piece and storage of massive amounts 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:41.320 of data on all of us and everything that we 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.120 do online is also a big component of it as well. 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.400 That I think it's under considered. And so my provocation 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:49.360 is like, do we really need to be collecting all 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.960 that data in the first place? That requires so much 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:55.560 you know, computation but also storage, which is driving the 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.520 creation and the building of so many of these hyperscale 0:04:58.560 --> 0:04:59.160 data centers. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.679 Building them just for generative AI or as generateve AI 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:04.320 just kind of an excuse. 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.960 Yeah, I certainly see it as an excuse it, you know, 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.200 if we're really digging into it, it is a bit 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:12.520 of both, right. On the one hand, these companies are 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.160 trying to build a ton of data centers in order 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.279 to power generative AI, because we both know how computationally 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.039 intensive not just the training of those models is, but 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.960 also then using those products. As these companies are trying 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.640 to roll them out into so much of what we do, 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:28.200 so many of the services that we use. 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:28.479 Right. 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:30.320 But then the other piece of it is that even 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.000 before the generative AI moment like I was talking about, 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:34.919 over the past five years, we can already see that 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.279 there was this scale up in the number of hyper 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:41.320 scale data centers being built in particular, and so in 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.560 that way, I see generative AI as an excuse to 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.159 continue building these things that they were already building in 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:50.880 the first place. And this is like the foundational point here, right, 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.919 is that if you think about a company like Amazon, 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.320 Microsoft and Google that has this massive cloud business, and 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.839 especially Microsoft and Amazon where they're getting so many you know, 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:02.839 you know where the profits from those businesses are so 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.280 important to their to their wider business model and being 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.640 able to expand into so many different areas of business. 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.200 You know, there is an inherent incentive then, and you know, 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:16.080 we know how capitalism works. These businesses always need to grow. 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:17.920 They need to be making more profits in order to 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.360 keep shareholders happy. So if your business is, you know, 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.400 providing centralized computation at scale, you need the amount of 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:29.159 computation that we all collectively use to continue growing year 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.080 on year, and you know they want it to be 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.200 growing very quickly, and that means you're not just going 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.600 to need more hyper scale data centers, but you need 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.960 to sell people on more computation and to make the 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:43.200 things that we use more computationally intensive to justify you know, 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:45.599 this this kind of business incentive that that's driving you. 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.200 So it almost kind of sounds like they have just 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.320 been trying to find computationally expensive or intensive even things 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:55.960 so that they could build more ways to compute and 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.840 justify these expensive It's kind of sickening, pisses yea off. 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.760 It's like when I think about that, people say to me, Oh, 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.279 you're angry. Why are I don't know why other people 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:08.840 aren't angry. I feel like you and I are about 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:10.560 as angry. We're very about this. 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:12.560 Maybe we express it in different ways. 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:16.000 Sometimes perhaps agree, yeah, you're a little nicer than I am. 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:20.680 Perhaps it's just frustrating because I was just on a 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.000 podcast actually just before this, and I was talking to 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.000 them and they were talking about the promise of AI. 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.200 But when you get past the promise, it's really just 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.760 kind of shit, like it's mediaoka, it's and they're building 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.840 all of this infrastructure for nothing, And one theory I 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.520 have is that it's not being used. I don't know 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.000 if you've seen anything that suggests that or what I mean, 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.320 you've likely working off of public documents, I'm guessing. But 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.120 what if this is for nothing? What if they've just 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.160 built a bunch of data centers for no reason. 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:53.720 Yeah, And that is something that I've talked to a 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:56.600 number of people about, right, because I'm trying to understand 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:58.760 that question as well. And I think that there's two 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.080 potential past that this takes. So one of them is 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:04.160 that maybe they don't end up using some of these 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.640 data centers that they're currently building, or they scale back 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.320 some of the projects that they're currently planning to build. 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:09.600 Right. 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.680 And so, you know, my kind of example to point 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.560 to for that being a potential pathway is you know, 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:20.800 remember in the early kind of probably year or eighteen 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.200 months of the pandemic, there was a lot of people 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.720 who were using like Amazon to get more things delivered. 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.800 And as a result, Amazon kind of created this plan 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.400 to build a ton more warehouses than they were actually 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.000 going to need. And as like you know, people went 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.120 back to kind of shopping a bit more normally. As 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.640 you know, the threat or as the lockdowns ended and 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.520 things like that, what you saw is the demand for 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.040 Amazon or the demand that Amazon had projected decreased, and 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.319 so they canceled a bunch of warehouse projects and expansions 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.880 across the United States and their wider warehouse network because 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:56.800 they felt that they weren't actually going to need all 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:58.880 that capacity that they thought they were going to. So 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.280 that's one potent path. But I think, you know, because 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:04.040 of what we were saying, and because of what was 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:06.800 what I was explaining about, you know, this need to 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.480 grow the amount of computation that we are like collectively using, 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.200 I think that it is less the chance with data 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.079 centers that that is the pathway that we see, and instead, 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.800 I think that the amount the number of data centers 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:23.559 that these companies are creating, if generative a AI falls off, 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:25.560 which I think we you know, we both think is 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.000 going to happen ultimately, that there's going to be this 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:31.760 this collapse, this crash, I think they will ultimately try 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:35.880 to find some other use case to justify building out 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.520 that computation because I think that that is like the 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.520 inherent project that they want to realize. On the one hand, 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:43.720 on the commercial side, but also because the people who 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.960 are running these companies really believe that everything that we 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.760 do in our society needs to have computation like inserted 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.280 in there somehow, and that this is the way that 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:53.560 we build like the future right. 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.360 Kind of makes me think of Peloton. No sure, if 0:09:57.400 --> 0:09:59.599 you remember the twenty twenty one stories of Peloton was 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:03.680 like pos the next trillion dollar company. Everyone was furiously 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:07.160 excited about Peloton, and then the moment people got allowed 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.240 outside again, it started to kind of fall apart. Well, okay, 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.040 I'm getting my dates wrong because twenty twenty one was 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.679 when it started to fall off. But nevertheless, I have 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.640 to wonder if that could happen here because while you 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.640 say they'll come up with a reason, what is it 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.160 and how does that lead to money? I just add 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.440 Zephyr teach out on and we were talking about this. 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.760 It's like, what if there is no plan? What if 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:32.120 they don't other than bigger? Because it's based on what 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:36.080 I've what the series you're doing is about. It seems 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.360 like they're committed to this at least, like this is 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:40.880 they need to do this to prove that they are cool, 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.000 rather than researching or developing things, it almost feels as 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:46.560 if they think this is inevitable. 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.920 That's what I feel, right, And part of that comes 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:52.640 not just from the commercial imperative, but also like these 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.240 broader ideological things that I'm sure that you've discussed on 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.520 your show and that I've been discussing with people as well. 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.400 But when you hear people like say Sam Altman or 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.840 Eric Schmidt or you know, Elon Musk talk about how 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.040 ais are going to become so intelligent, and you know 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.559 Sam Altman specifically saying that he wants to make sure 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:12.040 that we like I'll merge our brains with machines and 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.080 all these sorts of things, Like I think that suggests 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:17.719 also like the direction that these people want to go, 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.480 not because you know, not just because of commercial reasons, 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:23.440 not just because they think they're going to make you know, 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:26.000 more profits or try to realize some kind of world 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:27.719 that they want to realize this way, but because they 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.160 think that if this is the direction that we don't 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:34.760 take as a society, then you know, the future that 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:36.880 they think is the one that we need to realize 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.960 in order to have this you know, wonderful, glorious future 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.200 where humanity exists forever and we colonize all these planets 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:44.959 and all this kind of stuff. If we don't take 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.920 this direction, if we don't develop these incredibly powerful ais, 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.080 then in their mind, this isn't going to happen. So 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.320 it feels like, yes, there's the commercial element of this, right, 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.080 They're they're trying to drive investment with this AI boom 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.600 by promising so much about it. But like ideologically, in 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:01.840 their in their kind of minds and world views, they 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:03.400 think that this is the direction that we have to 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.040 go or we're basically all doomed, even though in the 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.520 process they're kind of dooming us by destroying. 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.880 At the time, destroying the environment to make sure we 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:25.040 don't do ourselves. That's the Eric Schmidt thing. Yeah, so 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.400 let's talk costs. Yeah, what is being put into this? 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:30.360 Because I have bullpop numbers, but maybe you have some 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:32.559 better ideas. How much is actually going into this? 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:38.480 Yeah, so it's hundreds of hundreds of billions, let me 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.160 get that, right, if not trillions of dollars? Right? And 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:44.800 I can't remember the exact figures off the top of 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.440 my head, but over the past year, say from June 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.640 of twenty twenty three to July of twenty twenty four. 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.440 Microsoft has been plowing hundreds of billions of dollars into 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.480 data center expansions around the world. Amazon committed I believe 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.439 it was one point five trillion dollars early this year 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.440 or last year to data center expansion, with about five 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:05.960 hundred billion of that going out in the short term. 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.120 So these are like massive numbers. We know that Microsoft 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:12.040 and open Ai have talked about building a one hundred 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.960 billion dollar data center complex that would need nuclear energy 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.960 in order to power it because they be so energy intensive. Yeah, right, exactly. 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.040 So like these are the kinds of numbers that we're 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.600 talking about, and I feel like these are the types 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.319 of numbers that we often hear, like, you know, governments 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.920 talk about when we're when they're making like massive investment 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.559 projects or something, right, not like private companies. But because 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.440 these private companies are so huge, it's like they can 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.000 build out these infrastructures that have, you know, such a 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.000 huge impact that they have impacts not just in communities, 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.400 but like nationwide globally because they are so significant. 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.800 Almost feels like a kind of authoritarianism. It feels like 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.600 they're building out a new governmental system that they control 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:56.040 that they meeter out which includes I guess it's a 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.800 vampiric element to it as well, where they control the 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:03.440 power of America, even though power is theoretically a civic good, 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:05.280 like a civic cutility. 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:08.600 Well, it definitely feels that way, especially when you look 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.680 at like the politics that they're embracing too, right where 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.400 you have so many of these influential people in Silicon 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:18.000 Valley not just embracing like Donald Trump, but embracing this 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.880 form of far right politics that is, you know, gaining 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.000 steam in a number of countries around the world that 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:27.320 is explicitly anti democratic. You know, Elon Musk is talking 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:29.480 a lot a lot about that these days and saying 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.000 that he thinks the Democrats are going to end democracy. Meanwhile, 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.880 like Donald Trump is saying quite explicitly that you know, 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:40.000 he wants to impinge on democratic rights. And these people 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:44.200 have no problem like working with anti democratic leaders around 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.320 the world as long as they see it as the 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:50.240 way to like advance not only their kind of personal 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.800 interests and to make sure their companies do well, but 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.040 also again to try to realize this like type of 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.800 future that they think is desirable. I was just recently 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.400 talking to Julia Black, who's a reporter at the Information 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:03.680 about this, and she did a profile on Curtis Jarvin, 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.520 who is like, you know this guy who yeah, this 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:08.920 guy who like calls himself a dark Elf, but you know, 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:10.840 as one of the co founders of the Dark Enlightenment. 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.600 This like you know, this this like political movement that 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.960 wants to see a monarchy established in the United States, 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:21.400 that structured more like you know, the CEO of a 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:25.160 corporation to have you know, the United States ron as 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.400 an authoritarian state. And we know that Peter Teal and 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:29.600 Mark Andriesen and a ton of these guys like support 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.080 these ideas, so you know, like you can you can 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.120 see that with the data centers, you can see this 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:38.360 like concerning power grab as these infrastructures expand and they're 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.480 in the hands of these major tech companies. But even 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:43.800 when you look at like the leaders of these companies themselves, 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:45.680 you can see that they very much want to make 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.000 sure that, you know, the power of the people through 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.960 democracy is curtailed so that they can do whatever they want. 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.520 And if you want to know more about Curtis Yarvin, 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:56.840 somehow behind the bus has had ed helms On to 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:01.880 talk about Curtis Yarvin. Want to hear comedian Ed Helms 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:07.200 talk about one of the worst people alive, like, definitely 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.920 a bottle popper. When he pops his clogs, there will 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.720 all be celebrating. So has there been any pushback against 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:19.920 these data centers you've seen, either from governments or people. Yeah. 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.800 Absolutely, And that's part of the reason that I wanted 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:26.160 to make the series and also like why it came 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.600 much more on my radar because I started hearing these 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.680 stories of pushback happening really around the world, right. And 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.520 it started with just hearing like the story of the 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.480 dolls in Oregon, where these people were trying to find 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.240 out the amount of water that Google's data centers were using. 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.640 And then Google or sorry, then you know, there was 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.800 actually a lawsuit because Google wouldn't share that information and 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:49.360 it took a year for them to share it with 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.200 the Oregonian, which is the local newspaper, and they found 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.360 that over the past few years, Google's water use, I 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:57.200 think it was over the past five years, Google's water 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.880 use had tripled, you know, just in that city alone. Yeah, 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.640 so these are really significant developments, right, But then I 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.399 started to hear about how, say in Phoenix or northern 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:08.760 Virginia or many other parts of the United States, there 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.040 were also growing concerns about data centers. And then I 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.760 started to learn about in Ireland how now twenty one 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:16.560 percent of all electricity goes to data centers, and that's 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.200 causing concerns about the ability of the power grid to 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.679 keep up, you know, but also about whether you know 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:24.879 it makes sense to be allowing this many data centers 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.040 to be built. You know, concerns in Spain about the 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.600 amount of water usage in areas that are increasingly facing droughts. 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.120 You know, concerns in France and the Netherlands, but also 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.679 in parts of Asia, in South America, where communities in 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.320 Chile were saying like, if you build this massive Google 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.680 data center, will we still have running water into our homes, 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:46.359 and Google not being able to say like, yeah, definitely, 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:48.000 we can make sure that will happen, and so then 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.880 they campaign to try to stop it. Like around the world, 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.240 you're seeing the opposition to these things grow, and I 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.120 would say part of the reason for that, going back 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.520 to what I was saying earlier, is that, you know, 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:00.960 it's not just the scale of these structures, but it's 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:03.520 because these companies are trying to build out so many 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:05.880 more of them around the world, and when they get 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.440 located in these communities, once one is established, they usually 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.720 try to build more around it to cluster them, right, 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.160 because they're usually beneficial reasons why they've located one there 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.760 in the first place. And so then you have these 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.879 these increasingly you know, greater demands being placed on the 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.040 power grids and the water infrastructure of these communities, and 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:27.440 eventually it reaches the point where where many of them 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:29.919 start to break and start to say, like, wait, this 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.080 doesn't make sense anymore. You're threatening our own access to 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:37.520 electricity or to water or whatever. And so, you know, 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:39.920 that is why I, you know, I've been paying so 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.240 much more attention to this issue because I think it's 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.000 something that we're all going to be hearing much more about. 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:47.760 And I think that the earlier that we do start 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:49.880 to take notice of these problems and start to push 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.119 back on them, you know, the hopefully the earlier we 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.400 can start to curtail these effects and make sure that 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.200 you know, these companies can't just get away with doing 0:18:58.240 --> 0:18:58.880 whatever they want. 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.119 Have we seen any situations where they have actually stopped 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:04.760 people accessing power or water? 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.639 Yeah, So in a few places we have seen like 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.480 the grids actually be threatened. So for example, in Ireland 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.520 now the grid operator in the winter often has to 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.119 issue these amber alerts to basically say to people like, 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:23.280 reduce your energy consumption or we're going to start doing 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.960 rolling blackouts. There were concerns. There's a story that Karen 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.119 Howe wrote in The Atlantic about what was going on 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.560 in Phoenix, and one of the biggest concerns there is, 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.880 of course, is you know, Phoenix's has a lot of desert. Yeah, 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:42.600