Data Vampires with Paris Marx

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3:13Wells Fargo, the bank of doing. Learn more at wellsfargo.com slash saydo. Support includes contributions from Wells Fargo & Company and the Wells Fargo Foundation. Call Zone Media Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host and the single most punished man alive, Ed Zitron.

3:44Better Offline Everyone hates me, but the people don't hate the man who's joining me today. I've got Paris Marks, the host of Tech Won't Save Us, the writer of the Disconnect blog, and the actual host of the brand new series he's about to tell us about, Data Vampires. Paris, thank you for joining me. Absolutely. It's so fun to be on the show. So tell me about the new show. I'm excited. Yeah, it's, you know, I think everyone has kind of been paying attention a bit more to like, the energy use of data centers and cryptocurrency and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, especially what powers generative AI and, you know, what's been kind of fueling the hype for the past two years.

4:23And so in this series, I wanted to go into why we're actually building so many data centers. What is behind these things? How much energy are they actually using? And on the one hand, like the commercial impulses to do this, but also like the kind of weird ideological reasons that these people want to build these massive AI systems in the first place, relating back to all these like things about AGI and, you know, trying to make computers with human level intelligence and all this kind of stuff where they eventually want to merge their brains with machines. So it goes into like the wide range of all these sorts of things over four episodes.

4:56So talk to me about the scale of this. How many of these data centers are they building? Like give the audience some idea because from what I know, it's not great. Yeah, absolutely. And it's quite a lot, right? Especially when you see it scale up over the past number of years. So we've seen this like really significant escalation over the past five years in particular in the construction of these data centers. So there was something like 500 or so, you know, about five years ago. And now we're looking at more like a thousand that were completed by the end of, or in the early part of 2024. We have many more than that now.

5:32And we know that Microsoft, Amazon, and Google in particular are making these huge investments to increase the number of data centers that they're building and to build them more quickly. And so, you know, the thing is, some people might listen to this and say, okay, yeah, but data centers have been around for a long time. And I think that this is an important distinction to make, right? Data centers, as we knew them, were like a floor in an office building that a company was using for their own purposes, or, you know, maybe even a specific room in the basement or something. But what we're talking about in particular with Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, and this move to the cloud and this kind of centralized computation is the hyperscale data centers that exist on the scale that is so much greater than what we used to have before the cloud and how we've really seen that escalate over the past few years in particular.

6:19So that is the specific problem, right? It's not that we have computation and it's not that there is some degree of centralized computation. It's the scale that these infrastructures exist at. And then the question of why we're actually building all these in the first place. So why are we building them? What are they actually putting in there? Yeah, and it's an essential point, right? And I think there are a few different ways to look at it, right? Some computation is always going to be necessary for the types of things that we're doing online. You know, there's no question about that, right? I think it's fair to say that we want some degree of Netflix, we want to have easy access to our email, you know, we want to be able to socialize with one another on these various platforms that we use.

6:59And I think that that is totally legitimate, and that we should be able to do those sorts of things, right? But then you ask, okay, but what is really driving the significant growth that we have been seeing over the past while? And we see on the one hand, certainly that is generative AI. The cryptocurrencies are a little bit separate from that because generally that stuff is not being run on, say, like the Amazon, Microsoft, and Google servers. Those are like specific things being set up. I don't even think they let you. Exactly, right? So these are specific infrastructures being set up by like crypto miners and things like that.

7:28So it's a little bit different, but we can still kind of, you know, look at the amount of energy use that's being put into those sorts of use cases. But the other piece that I think that we tend to, you know, not think about so much, especially when we talk so much about generative AI, is this sort of, you know, foundation that we have built the internet on over the past number of decades. And for a lot of these companies, the business model is collect as much data as possible so that then we can target ads and we can target product recommendations and all this sort of stuff to you. And that like surveillance piece and storage of massive amounts of data on all of us and everything that we do online is also a big component of it as well that I think it's under considered.

8:09And so my provocation is like, do we really need to be collecting all that data in the first place that requires so much computation, but also storage, which is driving the creation and the building of so many of these hyperscale data centers? And are they building them just for generative AI or is generative AI just kind of an excuse? Yeah, I certainly see it as an excuse. You know, if we're really digging into it, it is a bit of both, right? On the one hand, these companies are trying to build a ton of data centers in order to power generative AI because we both know how computationally intensive not just the training of those models is, but also then using those products as these companies are trying to roll them out into so much of what we do, so many of the services that we use.

8:52But then the other piece of it is that even before the generative AI moment, like I was talking about over the past five years, we can already see that there was this scale up in the number of hyperscale data centers being built in particular. and so in that way I see generative AI as an excuse to continue building these things that they were already building in the first place and and this is like the foundational point here right is that if you think about a company like Amazon Microsoft and Google that has this massive cloud business and especially Microsoft and Amazon where they're getting so many you know you know where the profits from those businesses are so important to their to their wider business model and being able to expand into so many different areas of business.

9:34You know, there is an inherent incentive then. And, you know, we know how capitalism works. These businesses always need to grow. They need to be making more profits in order to keep shareholders happy. So if your business is, you know, providing centralized computation at scale, you need the amount of computation that we all collectively use to continue growing year on year. And, you know, they want it to be growing very quickly. And that means you're not just going to need more hyperscale data centers, but you need to sell people on more computation and to make the things that we use more computationally intensive to justify this kind of business incentive that's driving you.

10:09So it almost kind of sounds like they have just been trying to find computationally expensive or intensive even things so that they could build more ways to compute and justify these expensive. It's kind of sickening, pisses me off. It's like when I think about this, people say to me, oh, you're angry. I don't know why other people aren't angry. I feel like you and I are about as angry about this. Maybe we express it in different ways sometimes. Perhaps, yes. You're a little nicer than I am, perhaps. Thank you. But it's just frustrating because I was just on a podcast, actually, just before this.

10:46And I was talking to them and they were talking about the promise of AI. But when you get past the promise, it's really just kind of shit. Like, it's mediocre. And they're building all of this infrastructure for nothing. And one theory I have is that it's not being used. I don't know if you've seen anything that suggests that, or I mean, you're likely working off of public documents, I'm guessing. But what if this is for nothing? What if they've just built a bunch of data centers for no reason? Yeah, and that is something that I've talked to a number of people about, right? Because I'm trying to understand that question as well.

11:21And I think that there's two potential paths that this takes. So one of them is that maybe they don't end up using some of these data centers that they're currently building or they scale back some of the projects that they're currently planning to build, right? And so my kind of example to point to for that being a potential pathway is, remember in the early probably year or 18 months of the pandemic, there was a lot of people who were using Amazon to get more things delivered. And as a result, Amazon kind of created this plan to build a ton more warehouses than they were actually going to need.

11:57And as like, you know, people went back to kind of shopping a bit more normally as, you know, the threat or as the lockdowns ended and things like that, what you saw is the demand for Amazon or the demand that Amazon had projected decrease. And so they canceled a bunch of warehouse projects and expansions across the United States and their wider warehouse network because they felt that they weren't actually going to need all of that capacity that they thought they were going to. So that's one potential path. But I think, you know, because of what we were saying and because of what I was explaining about, you know, this need to grow the amount of computation that we are like collectively using, I think that it is less the chance with data centers that that is the pathway that we see.

12:39and instead I think that the amount the number of data centers that these companies are creating, if generative AI falls off, which I think we both think is going to happen ultimately that there's going to be this collapse this crash I think they will ultimately try to find some other use case to justify building out that computation because I think that that is like the inherent project that they want to realize. On the one hand on the commercial side but also because the people who are running these companies really believe that everything that we do in our society needs to have computation like inserted in there somehow right um and that this is the way that we build like the future right kind of makes me think of peloton don't know sure if you remember the 2021 stories of peloton what it's like possibly the next trillion dollar company everyone was furiously excited about peloton and then the moment people got allowed outside again it started to kind of fall apart well okay i'm getting my dates wrong because 2021 was when it started to fall off but nevertheless i have to wonder if that could happen here because while you say they'll come up with a reason what is it and how does that lead to money i just had zephyr teach out on we were talking about this it's like what if there is no plan what if they don't other than bigger because it based on what i've i what the the series you're doing is about it seems like they're committed to this at least like this is they need to do this to prove that they are cool, rather than researching or developing things.

14:07It almost feels as if they think this is inevitable. That's what I feel, right? And part of that comes not just from the commercial imperative, but also these broader ideological things that I'm sure that you've discussed on your show and that I've been discussing with people as well. But when you hear people like, say, Sam Altman or Eric Schmidt or Elon Musk talk about how AIs are going to become so intelligent and Sam Altman specifically saying that he wants to make sure that we all merge our brains with machines and all these sorts of things. I think that suggests also the direction that these people want to go, not just because of commercial reasons, not just because they think they're going to make more profits or try to realize some kind of world that they want to realize this way, but because they think that if this is the direction that we don't take as a society, then, you know, the future that they think is the one that we need to realize in order to have this, you know, wonderful, glorious future where humanity exists forever and we colonize all these planets and all this kind of stuff.

15:07If we don't take this direction, if we don't develop these incredibly powerful AIs, then in their mind, this isn't going to happen. So it feels like, yes, there's the commercial element of this, right? They're trying to drive investment with this AI boom by promising so much about it. But like ideologically in their kind of minds and worldviews, they think that this is the direction that we have to go or we're basically all doomed, even though in the process they're kind of dooming us by destroying the climate targets. Yeah, they're destroying the environment to make sure we don't doom ourselves.

15:35That's the Eric Schmidt thing. Yeah.

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19:10So let's talk costs. What is being put into this? Because I have ballpark numbers, but maybe you have some better ideas of how much is actually going into this. Yeah, so it's hundreds of billions, let me get that right, if not trillions of dollars, right? And I can't remember the exact figures off the top of my head, but over the past year, say from June of 2023 to July of 2024, Microsoft has been plowing hundreds of billions of dollars into data center expansions around the world. Amazon committed, I believe it was$1.5 trillion. dollars earlier this year last year to data center expansion with about 500 billion of that going out in the short term so these are like massive numbers we know that microsoft and open ai have talked about building a 100 billion dollar data center complex that would need uh nuclear energy in order to power it because it would be so energy intensive yeah right exactly um so so like these are the kinds of numbers that we're talking about and and i feel like these are the types of numbers that we often hear like, you know, governments talk about when they're making like massive investment projects or something.

20:18Right. Not like private companies. But because these private companies are so huge, it's like they can build out these infrastructures that have, you know, such a huge impact that they have impacts not just in communities, but like nationwide, globally, because they are so significant. It almost feels like a kind of authoritarianism. Feels like they're building out a new governmental system that they control, that they meter out, which includes, I guess there's a vampiric element to it as well, where they control the power of America, even though power is theoretically a civic good, like a civic utility.

20:51Well, it definitely feels that way, especially when you look at the politics that they're embracing too, right? Where you have so many of these influential people in Silicon Valley, not just embracing Donald Trump, but embracing this form of far-right politics that is gaining steam in a number of countries around the world that is explicitly anti-democratic. You know, Elon Musk is talking a lot about that these days and saying that he thinks the Democrats are going to end democracy. Meanwhile, like Donald Trump is saying quite explicitly that, you know, he wants to impinge on democratic rights.

21:24And these people have no problem like working with anti-democratic leaders around the world as long as they see it as the way to like advance not only their kind of personal interests and to make sure their companies do well, but also, again, to try to realize this type of future that they think is desirable. I was just recently talking to Julia Black, who's a reporter at The Information about this, and she did a profile on Curtis Yarvin, who is this guy who calls himself a dark elf, but is one of the co-founders of the Dark Enlightenment, this political movement that wants to see a monarchy established in the United States that's structured more like, you know, the CEO of a corporation to have, you know, the United States run as an authoritarian state.

22:12We know that Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen and a ton of these guys like support these ideas. So, you know, like you can see that with the data centers, you can see this like concerning power grab as these infrastructures expand and they're in the hands of these major tech companies. But even when you look at like the leaders of these companies themselves, you can see that they very much want to make sure that, you know, the power of the people through democracy is curtailed so that they can do whatever they want. And if you want to know more about Curtis Yarvin, somehow Behind the Busters had Ed Helms on to talk about Curtis Yarvin.

22:45If you want to hear comedian Ed Helms talk about one of the worst people alive. Yeah, I think that's definitely worth listening to. A bottle popper when he pops his clogs there. We'll all be celebrating. So has there been any pushback against these data centers you've seen, either from governments or people. Yeah, absolutely. And that's part of the reason that I wanted to make the series and also like why it came much more on my radar, because I started hearing these stories of pushback happening really around the world, right? And it started with just hearing like the story of the dolls in Oregon, where these people were trying to find out the amount of water that Google's data centers were using.

23:27And then Google, or sorry, then, you know, there was actually a lawsuit because Google wouldn't share that information. And it took a year for them to share it with the Oregonian, which is the local newspaper. And they found that over the past few years, Google's water use, I think it was over the past five years, Google's water use had tripled, you know, just in that city alone. Yeah. So these are really significant developments, right? But then I started to hear about how, say in Phoenix or Northern Virginia or many other parts of the United States, there were also growing concerns about data centers.

23:56And then I started to learn about in Ireland, how now 21 % of all electricity goes to data centers. And that's causing concerns about the ability of the power grid to keep up, you know, but also about whether, you know, it makes sense to be allowing this many data centers to be built, you know, concerns in Spain about the amount of water usage in areas that are increasingly facing droughts, you know, concerns in France and the Netherlands, but also in parts of Asia, in South America, where communities in Chile were saying, like, if you build this massive Google data center, will we still have running water into our homes?

24:29And Google not being able to say, like, yeah, definitely we can make sure that will happen. And so then they campaigned to try to stop it. Like, around the world, you're seeing the opposition to these things grow. And I would say part of the reason for that, going back to what I was saying earlier, is that, you know, it's not just the scale of these infrastructures, but it's because these companies are trying to build out so many more of them around the world. And when they get located in these communities, once one is established, they usually try to build more around it to cluster them, right?

24:57Because there are usually beneficial reasons why they've located one there in the first place. And so then you have these increasingly greater demands being placed on the power grids and the water infrastructure of these communities. And eventually it reaches the point where many of them start to break and start to say like, wait, this doesn't make sense anymore. You're threatening our own access to electricity or to water or whatever. And so that is why I've been paying so much more attention to this issue, because I think it's something that we're all going to be hearing much more about. And I think that the earlier that we do start to take notice of these problems and start to push back on them, hopefully the earlier we can start to curtail these effects and make sure that these companies can't just get away with doing whatever they want.