⌥ Is Data Centre Criticism Sustainable?

Last month, within a day of each other, two writers published contrasting takes regarding the backlash to artificial intelligence and its infrastructure. I do not think they were knowingly writing in opposition to each other — the second does not reference the first — but they set up the titular question I find intriguing: will the public backlash toward data centres be sustained? Brian Merchant, on August 27: It’s almost funny to think back to the mild wave of public consternation and Congressional wrist-slapping that pundits termed “the techlash” in the heady days of the first Trump administration, over concerns of disinformation on Facebook and social media, compared to what we’re seeing now. That is, a genuine, sustained demonstration of rage at some of the modern tech industry’s key aims. And all of this has become so clear, so palpable, and so widespread that it’s apparently causing tech industry leadership and pro-AI policy wonks to enter either a state of denial or something…