Protests against data center locations and their environmental impacts are making headlines. AI usage contests are up front and center across social media, arguments include environmental issues, job displacement, and misinformation. Are these concerns legit or just another topic of the day? Let's see what valid information we can find.

First let's look at what AI can do for you.

Need information? AI is your new assistant. Search news, journals, abstracts, laws, reviews...you name it, if it's free information on the web, AI will provide it in a snap. All you have to do is decide the sources are viable and reliable, because your new assistant won't care.

Want to set up a website, done. In a matter of minutes AI can generate a personalized website, pictures included. Just provide a domain, a few details, and you are ready to begin selling, blogging, or sharing your favorite recipes. Bear in mind, your site could end up looking like another's.

Writing a book has never been easier. Come up with a topic or story line and AI will help you with a title, cover, and all the content you desire. Choose from children's books and novels to self-help and nutrition, hard copy or digital, AI has you covered. Although you will need to actually read the book to affirm it is what you had in mind.

Never considered yourself an artist? You can be one now. Whether in graphic design, photography, or art,  AI will find or generate it right to your screen. Need a bit of help home decorating or coming up with architectural features for your new home, AI will give you a hand with that too. Do check for permissions and/or copyrights before using and whether you actually can own your work, or you might find yourself in deep doo doo.

Stunning pictures, portraits, and videos can now happen for anyone. Today's enhancements don't stop at just removing glare or deepening tones. Take away years, pounds, blemishes, change a nose...you will never have to look bad in a photograph again. Shoot videos and add anyone's voice or face you desire. However, no one is appt take it seriously. Believing what you see is a concept long past.

Struggling at school? Worry no more. AI can do math, assemble a book report, or write your final paper. Ask away, all you have to do is know what needs to be done. How to navigate your device of choice is all you have to learn, and you can appear smarter than ever. Keep in mind, AI may save the data for future iterations, so be original from your classmates or you may be accused of cheating.

Thinking about a career in the sciences-medicine to weather-leap away. AI can process datasets in the blink of an eye, giving you a shot at the Noble Prize. No sifting and sorting, libraries or other institutions, AI can travel the world scanning the works of the best, leaving you with plenty of time to ponder the solutions to any of societies knowledge gaps or problems. But don't forget the feasibility study, if it's a new idea AI may fall short on actually how to make it happen.

Now let's see what feeds the oracle.

Land or sea, AI requires a data center, a location for thousands of square feet of buildings, on large plots of acreage. Often remote areas are chosen for the affordability of real estate. Although unknown to local supporters, data centers generate considerable light and noise pollution, disrupting the once dark and quiet communities and neighborhoods. 

Energy, energy, energy, and more energy. AI consumes massive amounts of energy drawn from an already strained electrical grid, pushing the price of electricity skyward. Some facilities are still receiving electricity from coal fired plants, adding CO2 to the atmosphere and influencing climate change. And to maintain a consistent online presence, it is necessary to use huge fossil fueled fired generators during extreme heat, peak hours, or when the grid goes down.

Data centers are thirsty and require a tremendous amount of water to displace the heat produced in operation. To avoid equipment damage and the risk of fire, evaporation or heat exchangers are typically used. Evaporation systems lose water to the atmosphere and add heat to environment. Heat exchangers are cooled similar to large refrigeration units, conserving water but consuming much more electricity.

Another contention is the infrastructure and technology attached to AI represents an extremely large capital investment, therefore using AI supports the monied upper crust. Even the operations, innovation of new technology, code writing, and some maintenance is managed by AI, reducing the need for a working class labor force, keeping the cream at the top.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

We can clearly see how Artificial Intelligence is dumbing humans down and instilling a kind of laziness. Centuries of effort to learn how to participate in living is unequivocally becoming unnecessary, making many humans obsolete.

Obviously, let AI do what it does best, garnering information and searching datasets. Here, AI exceeds any probabilities of human capabilities. But humans need to be creative. True writers add personality and wit; artists contribute to their work what AI can't--emotion. Seeing should be believing. Nonetheless, technology has removed the audio and visual realities of the world. And, children need to learn. Maybe it is time to change how learning is accomplished, now that we can easily find an answer to most questions. But learning comes from doing the work. We are already suffering from an extinction of experience, let's not take it all away, evolving human zombies.

As far as data centers go, they need limits until we have a better plan. They are hungry for resources the Earth can't sustain and contribute to existing issues. Some say put them in the ocean or in the arctic regions to reduce the drain, forgetting we are already facing warming and rising seas and melting polar caps. Heat is heat and has to go somewhere.

No one has begun to consider the potential outcomes from creating so much misinformation and nonsense. It is time to begin thinking our ideas through, using some imagination and weighing the possibilities of our creations. Artificial intelligence is truly incredible and can be a useful tool when applied wisely. Let's not give up on technology, but simply apply the brakes, coasting to demonstrate, for now, we have enough, and allow time to imagine what we are doing to the world and all of us in it. And we definitely need to find new ideas on how to feed the ravenous monster. 

Every individual can turn off, turn down, and pass on those actions compounding today's concerns. We can also boot up our device and be mindful.

                                                      - Carter

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