Are you for or against Data Centers?
- Thread starter ZZman
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But what are they computing? 5 times nothing is still nothing. beyond virtual things, and communications I see no improvement in day to day tech, than 30 years ago.....really, it has been down hill, with the exception to some things....battery tech being one.
If AI is all super duper powerful, how come they do not direct the AI to make ultra efficient solar panels ending the worlds power "issue".
Some say "Because we have not figured it out yet".......well with the help of super computers that can make billion of decisions per minute, and access to all of the worlds data......coming up with something as simple as a 100% efficient solar panel should not be that far away. Or cure cancer. Or, make a car that gets 100 miles per gallon?
Maybe. Such a building would be a very easy target for a near peer to destroy. To bank most capabilities on such a building would be foolish IMO.
More likely the data to be used against us, than a military adversary
OK, all electronic stuff. I am talking about physical stuff.
Owen Lucas
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I would wager that's exactly what these companies are using data centers for. We might not hear everything that's happening, just yet. But having a super brain not only run billions of simulations and tests per hour but also recursively and intelligently improve the design/concept is like having a team of 100s of R&D techs.
It's all about bringing a product to market and it will help with that. I bet xAI is doing solar panel research, battery research, anything that increases the bottom line and competitive advantage.
AI is solving 100+ year old mathematical problems in hours. The same being done for any other topic, is certainly happening. We might just not know it yet, but will hear about and hopefully benefit from it in some way. These multi-billion dollar projects are run by people in the know. It's not like the crypto- craze a few years ago.
AI will power everything we do from now on and we won't be able to stop it.
Bezos is starting his own AI company called Prometheus. Specifically focused on medical research IIRC. Some says its so he can invent life extension therapies, which I don't blame him, I would do the same, and this would generate billions or trillions.
AI research into medicine will likely cure many cancers in the next 5 years, cure baldness, and allow us to live essentially forever. Well those with millions to spare. Some futurists postulate that the 1st person to live to 1000 has already been born.
Surveillance, most certainly. Faster correlations between massive data pipelines, in the wrong hands we're screwed and controlled beyond comprehension. Used appropriately, crime goes down and society benefits.
Military uses, I'd say this is the primary focus. I don't believe surveillance tech or even running through massive data sets for this purposes is very AI intensive. Inventing and simulating new weapons, hacking adversaries, decryption, who knows what else, is the likely most important use.
Eventually I think we'll get there; or at least an unobtainable answer as far as current technology and economics allowed. For example, let's just say AI says we'll need 100,000 pounds of silver to create the solar panels we'll need to solve the current crisis with today's current technology. However, current technology make that economically impossible.
It's still in its infant stage though. Next few years maybe we'll see who wins this race.
I hear you partner.....but
That is the same thing that has been being said for the last 20+ years. Always in its infancy. Kind of like Iran being 1 month away from nukes.
The AI could make it economically possible. It should be able to think a billion steps ahead, and every change of course, all possibilities accounted for. Basically, if it was possible, the AI should be able to give us a path. That is what I want to see. An AI you could pose a real question to, and it give the answer. Not "hey AI are there Aliens?" or "hey AI, are we all being surveilled right now"?
How about: "Hey AI, what are the best companies to invest in the stock market"
Maybe there is no infancy. Like a photon. Or maybe it is nothing, a red herring. I can think of a few of those given to the public.
I agree on all points. Right now it seems like AI is more like an advanced search engine and able to calculate the near future with human-determined formulas. Once the Intelligence in Artificial intelligence starts showing and it starts thinking for itself, that would be quite a thing to experience.
This site is undoubtedly hosted at a data center. You don’t think it is any better or useful than a dialup BBS of 30 years ago?
Like I said previously, beyond communications, I dont see much. Also beyond communication, no one has given an example to the contrary applicable to everyday life. Nothing you can buy is cheaper, or better.....nothing.
Take away instant communication, take away smart phones, again I dont see much.
Normal hosting data centers are full of storage devises that don’t need much for cooling or power. AI data centers are full of nvidia h200 gpus that suck up massive amounts of power and need tons of water to cool them down.
One h200 chip consumes around 400 watts and each data center can have hundreds of thousands of h200 gpus. It’s not even in the same universe as a hosting data center when it comes to cooling and power.
One h200 chip consumes around 400 watts and each data center can have hundreds of thousands of h200 gpus. It’s not even in the same universe as a hosting data center when it comes to cooling and power.
4wd
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And for such wholesome goodness like BitCoin
Owen Lucas
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I read an article on a small hedge fund in NYC. It's like 5 guys, computer scientists, finance guys, quants, whatever. They supposedly built an AI so accurate that they are making billions a year. They won't let anyone into the fund, just keep the money for themselves. Makes sense TBH.
All you need is to beat the house by 1% and you can print money, sounds like they are doing better than that.
Massive benefits won't be instantaneous, but they are there, and many more in the pipeline. It's the new way everything will be researched in the future.
We just don't have all the news or know the provenance of every single thing we use. AI is being used for larger more important problems now, here are some examples:
The Simulation Foundation
Before AI, breakthroughs in weather forecasting, nuclear modeling, and protein folding relied on supercomputers running physics equations for weeks. AI learned from those simulation outputs and now replicates in seconds what previously took months, while finding patterns in data too complex for any human or traditional computer to navigate.
AlphaFold
Protein folding stumped scientists for 50 years. In 2020 AlphaFold solved it, predicting protein structures with near-experimental accuracy and releasing 200 million structures freely, fundamentally accelerating drug discovery overnight.
New Drugs in Trials
Insilico Medicine designed a drug for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis entirely from scratch and reached Phase 2 clinical trials in 4 years versus the typical 10 to 15. Recursion Pharmaceuticals runs AI across billions of cellular experiments at a scale no human research team could match.
Cancer Detection
DeepMind's AI detects breast cancer from mammograms more accurately than radiologists, reducing false positives by 5.7% and false negatives by 9.4%. Similar systems now detect diabetic retinopathy, skin cancer, and lung nodules with superhuman accuracy.
New Materials
Google DeepMind's GNoME project discovered 2.2 million new stable crystal structures, surpassing everything humans had found in the entire history of materials science. Around 380,000 show promise for batteries, solar cells, and semiconductors.
Fusion Energy
DeepMind trained an AI to control plasma inside a tokamak fusion reactor in real time, solving a control problem too complex for traditional computing and directly advancing practical fusion energy.
Chip Design
Google's AI designs the physical layout of its TPU chips in hours, a task that takes human engineers months, and produces layouts that outperform human designs. The chips that train AI are now being designed by AI.
Climate Modeling
AI surrogate models now run climate simulations thousands of times faster than traditional physics-based supercomputer models, allowing researchers to test far more scenarios and make predictions previously out of reach.
Have no fear, this will benefit us all in the end, there will be turbulence but if we make it through it, it will be amazing.
IIRC, some of the bitcoin miners are using their GPUs as data centers now.And for such wholesome goodness like BitCoin
yeah I have read the same things, but see no tangible benefits as of yet.
Most notably, weather modeling. Still the only profession that you can be right 100% of the time, and wrong 100% of the time.
Data Centers need water, why not build near Lake Michigan…… or Lake Okeechobee (Florida) ?
Lots of water and lots of empty land available.
Just thinking…..
Waterfront property tends to be very expensive and requirements may have to hedge against extreme flooding or other disasters/threats.
Here in the KC metro one data center that ground was broken on, just picked up and left when the neighbors in the area protested a lot and vowed to make the data centers life miserable. The other one the city they were approved, got reversed by massive public protest.
they are and even the Great Lake water basin is not unlimited, hence why there is a pact and certain areas are in the skirt houseData Centers need water, why not build near Lake Michigan…… or Lake Okeechobee (Florida) ?
Lots of water and lots of empty land available.
Just thinking…..
I think start at the end of 2025 Claude Code was able to do real productive work that is faster than what human can do efficiently. This is like someone was able to read your design from the last 30 years then become a better engineer than you are, if you are willing to pay for the token cost. Before that sure, a lot of fake videos as tech demo, but recently OpenAI reduced / stopped these video generation AI and focus back on productivity stuff like software development.
It is just the start but from what I heard a lot of Indian contracting firm employee got laid off in the last several months because they can't compete with AI. Many of the translation gigs and testing gigs are now done by AI completely instead of outsourced to 3rd world.
Palentir has been doing a lot for the military as well as automate human labor intensive but boring work but they aren't generative AI, they are ontology based instead.
