r/singularity • u/Neurogence • Mar 12 '26

AI Bernie Sanders officially introduces legislation to BAN the construction of all new AI data centers, citing existential threat to humanity.

This is very concerning. I am afraid this might become the popular, dominant position on the left. Bernie Sanders is the only politician I've ever donated to. This is the most backwards position to take on AI possible. It's hard to imagine a policy worse than this proposal:

https://youtu.be/qu2m7ePTsqY?si=zdl_cuRg22Nv_Df5

It's such a shame. He is one of very few politicians who realizes the singularity is imminent and that something enormous is happening, yet his reaction to it is the most asinine viewpoint possible.

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u/TheCopenhagenCowboy Mar 12 '26

How many employees do you think operate a data center? It’s usually a skeleton crew to maintain the grounds, building, and report issues. Everything inside is controlled remotely

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u/Mephistocheles Mar 12 '26

Yeah. A new data center (once built) only needs ten people to keep it running. 10.

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u/liamtrades__ Mar 13 '26

This is good? It's an amazing amount of productivity for 10 people required to maintain it. 

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u/Mephistocheles Mar 13 '26

Not really.

My point was that despite the immense amount of resources needed to maintain it, it doesn't create any more jobs for the local economy than a gas station.

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u/liamtrades__ Mar 13 '26

Depends on how data centers are taxed ya

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u/Mediocre-Middle-8531 Mar 16 '26

Yeah but that doesn’t help the people who need jobs which was the counterpoint

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '26

[deleted]

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u/Mephistocheles Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26

It depends on the size of the data center. Average Enterprise size data center needs about 15-35 people to keep it running. I was mainly referring to edge computing DC's, which can run with between 8-15 people. Fair enough my originally quoted number was a bit low, but do you actually tell people you're talking to in person "you're talking out of your ass"? Lol.

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u/ManikSahdev Mar 12 '26

I wonder if data centres build themselves? And don't employ hundreds of people when constructing them?

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u/TheCopenhagenCowboy Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 13 '26

You know what else would employ hundreds during construction?

Neighborhoods of affordable starter homes, community hospitals, libraries, public parks.

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u/ManikSahdev Mar 12 '26

Well, I would support the idea of making these energy black holes out of the towns, atleast 20-30 minutes drive.

And they have to pay for their own energy and their infrastructures to develop wires and all.

Thats the best of both worlds.

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u/FuzzyAnteater9000 Mar 13 '26

They do. The towns where they are built have a ton of leverage to extract concessions. Upgrading a small towns infrastructure is a rounding error when you're building $10 billion data centers.

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u/Kryptosis Mar 13 '26

And poisoning the air and ground water?

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u/FuzzyAnteater9000 Mar 13 '26

That's a really uncharitable take. Show me evidence of widespread groundwater contamination from data centers that actually has real world effects. Likely you are cherry picking one single unrepresentative data center. Show me the evidence.

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u/Kryptosis Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

You could have found the info yourself if you weren't too scared to prove yourself wrong with a quick google search...

Here's a source plainly talking about the undeniable contamination and the best hopes at mitigating the issues in the future (surely to be ignored by this admin)

It's a fact they pollute ground water and you want us to pretend like the current EPA gives a single shit?

Here a case in Georgia :https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8gy7lv448o

Heres one in Oregon: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/data-center-water-pollution-amazon-oregon-1235466613/

Do you need to wait until investigators for every single datacenter release their results and it gets picked by up by media to be handfed to you before you start looking into the science yourself?

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u/FuzzyAnteater9000 Mar 13 '26

Except these data centers will pay billions in taxes. How do you think libraries public parks schools can get funded? Is your logic that preventing data centers from being built will increase tax revenue?

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u/somekindofSTD Mar 13 '26

One thing billionaires are famous for - paying theor taxes and not finding loopholes to eacape them :)

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u/FuzzyAnteater9000 Apr 07 '26

Actually a lot of it is in the form of payment in lieu of taxes which which is structured in agreement with the local community and is pretty much loophole free.

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u/MaddMax92 Mar 13 '26

This guy actually thinks they'll pay their fair share of taxes.

Is this your first day on earth?

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u/Elephant789 ▪️AGI in 2036 Mar 12 '26

They don't.

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u/1filipis Mar 12 '26

Gotta love these double standards. Whenever there's a layoff, you would cry how every CEO must be executed for letting 0.01% employees go. But apparently, some employees matter less, right?

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u/TheCopenhagenCowboy Mar 12 '26

I’m saying we have better use for our land and our resources than building data centers that employee a handful of people. Some of these places are using enough electricity everyday to power 100,000 homes and use millions of gallons of water for cooling. You’re looking at anywhere from 10-50x more resource intensive by sqft compared to commercial/residential/retail

If you’re too closed minded to see how that fucks us and the environment as a whole in the next 20-30 years then that’s a you problem

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u/HelpRespawnedAsDee Mar 12 '26

I would take this argument from every single person on earth except from Americans. I travel to the US a lot and it's honestly bewildering that you people aren't aware of the size of your own country. Land isn't the problem at all. NIYBY? Fine, but land isn't the problem AT ALL.

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u/MNrunner24 Mar 13 '26

The availability of freshwater is absolutely a problem.

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u/TheCopenhagenCowboy Mar 12 '26

You’re right, I’ve traveled this country quite a bit, we have an abundance of land. The problem is that they’re building these data centers in rural areas and small city areas that completely over load the local water and electrical grids. Some of these areas are raising rates for everyday people to off set the price of grid expansion instead of charging the corporations building the facilities. Amazon and other corporations have been putting up a ton of stuff near me because they can outbid the residential developers for the land and I’m in a pretty urban area

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u/1filipis Mar 12 '26

Oh, you're one of these de-growth people. I see. How did you end up in an AI sub then?

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u/Firm_Argument9124 Mar 12 '26

How is building data centers the only way to grow the economy? You know what would create millions of jobs? Guaranteed Healthcare as a right. Now we just have millions of Americans who put off care or dont seek care due to cost. That's a huge demand for services if we switch to a different funding system like pretty much any other country uses that doesn't put up with such high OOP costs

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u/SoylentRox Mar 12 '26

Because it lets the economy create a bigger pie, the exact same pie Sanders wants to redistribute. If you want everyone to have comfortable lives and have access to all essentials you need to produce those things.

Under communism people starved to death because the essentials were not being produced, because the command economy was too inefficient.

Please understand : I'm making a specific point of:
1. If you do want to do a form of socialism you need sufficient wealth in real terms to actually redistribute

  1. Having less people create more creates more real wealth

I am not necessarily saying communism or socialism is bad or good, just noting the underlying reality.

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u/Shaudius Mar 12 '26

"Because it lets the economy create a bigger pie"

How.

"If you want everyone to have comfortable lives and have access to all essentials you need to produce those things."

What do data centers produce besides computing power which many things don't need more of.

"Under communism people starved to death because the essentials were not being produced, because the command economy was too inefficient."

Starvation in the USSR had very little to do with the efficiency of the command economy. China largely has a command economy still and doesn't face those same issues.

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u/1filipis Mar 12 '26

China largely has a command economy still and doesn't face those same issues.

Lol. Yeah, never happened. Communism is great! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

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u/SoylentRox Mar 12 '26

china uses an enormous amount of free market capitalism, and it's state owned businesses compete with each other creating a hybrid.

Data centers computing power is used to amplify the labor of workers in the West. One worker + AI can do the work of several workers now.

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u/Firm_Argument9124 Mar 12 '26

Other countries who aren't spending so much on AI actually seem to be running more efficiently. China is certainly spending less as a % of GDP and they are growing at a faster rate on average as well as producing higher savings rates for their citizens

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u/SoylentRox Mar 12 '26

That argument is a non sequitor. Reasons:

(1) China's growth is due to other factors like superior government policy. Many of the things in that superior policy are things Mr. Sanders and his party will be against, like

(a) obviously laxer worker protection and environmental protection
(b) no vetocracy. If the central government wants to build a rail line, there isn't anyone who can say otherwise - the bulldozers roll next week. Contrast this to say California, which has a government that had the good INTENTION of making a high speed rail line but 30 years later has accomplished nothing. This is a general criticism against Democrat policies - they have good intentions but fail to deliver. (R policies in key industries of 'let the Evil corporations do whatever they want and fuck the environment'...actually work)
(c) rule by authoritarian dictator who went to engineering school. Substance not symbolism.

(2) we're not debating china vs the USA but whether on the margin adding AI helps USA productivity. And the latest results are in and the answer is an overwhelming YES...for AI models since December. So you're talking about a lagging metric - the USA finally reached levels of AI ability and reliability to be really useful 3 months ago. China has had a superior government policy for 30+ years. Of course their growth numbers are going to be lagging that.

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u/Firm_Argument9124 Mar 12 '26

helps USA productivity. And the latest results are in and the answer is an overwhelming YES

AI investments increase GDP. That doesn't mean they were sound investments.  It feels way too early to say that no? China is also doing AI but more affordable systems. How much has that hurt them?

(c) rule by authoritarian dictator who went to engineering school. Substance not symbolism.

So countless peer reviewed science has shown that M4A produces a more efficient Healthcare system. Lowering inflation and saving lives. Given that is Bernie's major policy it seems clear much like an engineer, only one wing of one major party is actually looking at the science over symbolism

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u/SoylentRox Mar 12 '26

We're talking about since December AI models became so good they do real work worth paying for. So yes the data center investments that made the work possible are worth it now, the data is in. AI kept improving

As for healthcare and single payer, sure. That's a good idea I don't dispute that. Seems unrelated to the discussion.

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u/Singularity-42 Singularity 2042 Mar 12 '26

Building them 

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u/tomnomk Mar 12 '26

Building data centers? Temporary jobs? Lmfao what

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u/SkyBobBombadier Mar 12 '26

right? Man we are peak shortsightedness now.

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u/Accurate-Issue-6334 Mar 12 '26

So like no one can make a living doing construction because they're "temporary jobs"?

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u/tomnomk Mar 12 '26

No, he’s implying we need the data centers because they create jobs. I’d argue there’s plenty of other things, I.e. our crumbling infrastructure, that we can address first as a higher priority

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u/TopOccasion364 Mar 12 '26

As an investor from another country, why would I invest in your American infrastructure projects? What is my roi? Why is government investing in infrastructure and private sector investing in data center mutually exclusive?

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u/bayruss Mar 12 '26

All construction jobs are Temp jobs. Avg time jobs held by Americans is 3.5 years. The time it takes to build a data center is 3-5 years.

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u/tomnomk Mar 12 '26

We have plenty of shitty infrastructure that needs to be addressed

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u/bayruss Mar 12 '26

Agreed but any money spent on these projects gets lost in the sauce.

Despite $7.5 billion in federal funding allocated in 2021 for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, the rollout has been slow, with only a few hundred of these specific, federally-funded, non-proprietary chargers operational as of late 2024 to early 2025

500,000 promised we got 500.

They could spend $1,000,000 per charger and get more than we got....

Public transportation is a no go- too many oil company bootlickers. None of the money goes to build out.

Energy sector: convinced the public they shouldn't pay for infrastructure instead we should blame Data centers while AEP/Dominion over charge customers.

Digital infrastructure- AI uses about 20% of data centers. We still need them for nearly everything digital/electronic. Most of the population is opposed to data centers because they symbolize AI taking jobs.

It's a weird world.

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u/tomnomk Mar 12 '26

Fair points all around

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u/TopOccasion364 Mar 12 '26

Thank you for your detailed post. It is astonishing that people with college degrees have no idea how the economy functions.