“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
— George Orwell, 1984
In last week’s cover story, reporter Kailynn Johnson dug into the grassroots fight against AI — a fight focused on community health and safety — and the environmental repercussions of data centers, specifically xAI’s Colossus here. But such centers are popping up in droves across the country.
Not only have these centers (or “supercomputers” in the case of our local xAI) started operations with little to no community input or oversight, many surrounding residents don’t seem to understand what’s going on with them, saying “they’re bringing money to town,” or jobs, or growth. In February, the official xAI Memphis X account posted, “xAI is proud to be a member of the Memphis community for over two years. We now employ almost 3,000 locally to help power @Grok.” While I’ve yet to hear from anyone employed with the tech giant, jobs, growth, or even money aren’t enough to justify the harms of AI.
Last summer, EESI (Environmental and Energy Study Institute) reported, “Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons [of water] per day, equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people.” And, “According to scientists at the University of California, Riverside, each 100-word AI prompt is estimated to use roughly one bottle of water. … billions of AI users worldwide enter prompts into systems like ChatGPT every minute.”
Add in their polluting gas turbines and the newly reported effect on regional temps (this month, from Fortune: “Data centers are so hot their ‘heat island’ effect is raising temperatures up to 6 miles away and impacting 343 million people worldwide, study finds”), and environmental concerns clearly abound.
Beyond that, the societal implications are grim and growing darker by the day. Countless human jobs are at stake in countless industries. And there is a push to use AI in creative endeavors. AI-generated artists, fake “performers” created with AI tools like Suno or Udio, are seeing millions of streams and topping charts on Spotify. This month, Berklee College of Music in Boston launched a new AI music course — an institution consistently named among the best in the world is now promoting generative AI songwriting. If you haven’t heard any (please don’t seek it out), AI music is soulless and devalues the time it takes to learn an instrument, train a voice, or work out meaningful lyrics.
AI steals from human ideas to create art and music devoid of emotion, uncomfortably eerie videos, and uncanny valley imagery. And for those using it daily to plan for them, answer questions, and create for them, the price is higher than almost everything mentioned above — the ability to think.
Last November, a Time magazine headline read, “ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills, According to a New MIT Study”; an April Futurism story: “Study Finds AI Use Eats Away at Users’ Confidence in Their Own Brains”; and in a post this Monday from the BBC: “AI chatbots could be making you stupider.”
Memphis’ Grok has produced racist content and pornographic images of minors. Fake videos and photos are getting harder for the regular Joe to spot. And day by day, those same Joes are losing the critical thinking capacity to try.
Earlier this month, Pew Research Center reported, “The United States has more than 3,000 operational data centers, and that number is expected to grow substantially in the years ahead. More than 1,500 new data centers are in various stages of development nationwide, according to [our] analysis.”
With AI’s quick takeover, we’re being watched (Flock cameras), listened to (our own devices), and studied more than ever, in ways we aren’t even aware of. Our water, air, and minds are at risk. They’re building a society too dumb to question anything or think for themselves, a society where jobs will soon be more scarce and natural resources may be too. This is a fast track to irreversible dystopia. The slope is slick and we’re halfway down the hill. Someone pull the emergency brake.