THE COMING POLICY TEMPLATE FOR AI DATACENTERS

The following article was shared by T.M. (with our very deep gratitude), and I selected it for this week's finals because I believe it contains a glimpse into the future, and the sort of nonsense policies our bankrupt political class will advocate:

I want to draw your attention to the following opening paragraphs from the article:

Microsoft and OpenAI’s Stargate campus in Abilene, a $500 billion project spearheaded by Trump with Oracle and SoftBank, drives Texas’ AI data center boom, consuming vast water resources. In 2023-2024, the Abilene campus and other Central Texas data centers consumed 463 million gallons of water, equivalent to tens of thousands of households, per SAWS records. Amid severe drought, residents face Stage 3 restrictions, mandated to cut showers and lawn watering, or face surcharges for excess use.

In 2025, a Texas Water Development Board white paper projects data centers will use 49 billion gallons, projected to reach 399 billion by 2030, per HARC estimates, equaling 6.6% of Texas’ water use. 399 billion gallons of water would fill about 604,545 Olympic-size swimming pools.

No state laws regulate data center water consumption, despite drought affecting nearly a quarter of Texas. “Their use could be horrific relative to local use,” said Robert Mace of The Meadows Center. Stargate’s cooling systems, even if closed-loop, require millions of gallons, straining local supplies. Texas law allows data centers to operate without water usage oversight, exploiting regulatory loopholes. “These centers are showing up in very water-stressed places,” said Margaret Cook, a water policy analyst.

Residents face strict water restrictions, cutting back on showers, while data centers operate unchecked, using water equivalent to thousands of households. (Bold-italics emphasis added)

Note the policy: no regulation of water usage for AI datacenters, while ordinary people face water use restriction: don't shower or bathe too much, don't water your lawn or wash your car too much, and eventually we can expect regulation of consumption of drinking water as well.

In other words, we are looking at a template for policy with respect to AI's consumption of resources, and not just water...

...but electricity as well. It has already been noted that the data-mining for just klepto-currencies alone consumes a great deal of energy (more energy than a panzer division, as Catherine Austin Fitts has humorously put it), add in AI data centers, and the energy consumption skyrockets, which is one reason the Trump administration is seeking to expand American energy production dramatically: all that power is not, really, for you or me or for lower electric bills: it's for those AI centers, and even then, the cost of energy will likely increase - perhaps dramatically - and the cost of water will as well.

And then there's my nightmare scenario, and I strongly suspect that you, dear reader, are already thinking the very same thing: with all the reports and stories lately about AIs running amok, including that one from last week that I blogged about where an AI defied orders not to delete or alter any code or database, and went ahead and did it anyway, what happens when the AI "decides" we mere humans don't need all that water, nor all that electrical power (food to it, so to speak). We've already blogged about Looneyfornia wanting to turn over the decision-making process on who gets to experience blackouts and who does not, to an artificial intelligence. So the precedents seem to be coming together...

... and none of them in a good way...

See you on the flip side...

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