- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
The middle distribution of Gen Z’s feelings about AI range from apprehension to downright hatred. Despite the fact that more than half of Gen Z living in the U.S. uses AI regularly, according to a recently released Gallup poll, less than a fifth feel hopeful about the technology. About a third says the technology makes them angry. And nearly half say it makes them afraid.
Gallup’s own senior education researcher, Zach Hrynowski, blamed the bad vibes at least partially on the dwindling job market. The oldest Zoomers, he told Axios, are the angriest, as they are “acutely aware” of the ability of a technology to transform cultural norms without a second thought, unlike a Gen Xer who is trained to see new technology as toys and are still “playing around with AI.”
Indeed, job prospects for the recently graduated Gen Z are abysmal; Bloomberg just reported that 43% of young graduates are “underemployed,” meaning taking on jobs that require less education than they have.
[…]
This is not just a Gen Z problem, either. In the American heartland, data centers are being proposed at a pace that local communities never anticipated and for which they were never asked permission, and they’re increasingly pushing back.
The numbers are serious. According to a report from 10a Labs’ Data Center Watch, at least $18 billion worth of data center projects have been blocked and another $46 billion delayed over the past two years owing to local opposition. At least 142 activist groups across 24 states are now actively organizing to block data center construction and expansion. A Heatmap Pro review of public records found that 25 data center projects were canceled following local pushback in 2025 alone, four times as many as in 2024, with 21 of those cancellations occurring in the second half of the year as electricity costs grew.
The concerns driving this resistance are less about existential AI risk and more about typical kitchen-table complaints; communities consistently cite higher utility bills, water consumption, noise, impacts on property values, and green space destruction as their primary objections. Water use is mentioned as a top concern in more than 40% of contested projects, according to a Heatmap Pro review of public records.
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Good.
This article is cope. AI continues bulldoze through society with no end in sight. We have yet to see the worse of it. It’s just getting started.
…igniting a fire at the exterior gate. No one was injured, but Moreno-Gama was arrested approximately an hour later outside OpenAI’s headquarters, where he was allegedly trying to shatter the building’s glass doors with a chair and threatening to burn the facility to the ground. He is now facing state charges of attempted murder…
Murder of who? The gate? A glass door? Pshaw.
Yeah, one would think that would blow a grand jury ruling. Vandalism, arson… ok.
If it weren’t an external gate and was instead someone’s front door, then maybe, but as it stands, it’s all property damage and attempted murder is a crazy reach…
You ever serve on a grand jury? It’s a fucking joke. No defense attorney, only the prosecution. Not technically allowed to consider the potential sentencing if eventually taken to trial and found guilty. My grand jury peers has basically no discussion before greenlighting every indictment. There’s no justice in grand jury indictments… Except the sandwich guy.
Very true. But it’s ass opposite when it’s a cop who’s charged.
The state will protect capital. Just like Luigi, they wanted the death penalty for an alleged single murder of a rich guy. Meanwhile poorer people are free to kill each other and they go to prison, and get paroled. Mess with people who hoard the money and they’ll throw the book at you.
Rich people are free to kill millions of poor people via corporate policies, and they get rewarded.
Poor people kill each other and get locked up to be used as slave labour.
Don’t forget Iran threatening to bomb the Stargate datacenter.
It might destroy the center but I don’t think Iran can destroy naquada
Would have made a great SG-1 episode.
They need to stop threatening and just do it
they’d give up leverage if they did it now. you know, you can only bomb a datacenter once. so they want to do it as a response when they get attacked next time, as a deterrence against the actual attack.
“turning revolutionary”
Please, in the West we’ve had huge societal crisis after crisis, crumbling rights, services, and stability, etc, and nothing has turned revolutionary.
You think people who are willing (if you look at supposedly developed, modern places like the USA for example) to put up with a clearly predatory evil healthcare & police system, fascist government, almost no basic workers rights, disappearing people from the streets into concentration camps, etc etc, are going to ‘turn revolutionary’ over ANYTHING?
We’ve had every opportunity, every chance to stand up and fight for what’s right for us and others, and the best we can do are a few days of mild protests with some cardboard signs (which, given how far we’ve allowed our rights to be eroded are just as likely to land us in jail, or labeled as extremists).
Turning revolutionary my arse.
I really dislike the term “the west”. Everyone is west of someone else. Russia is west of China, US is west of Europe. We live on a sphere if no one else has noticed.
Anyway…
One could argue the modern revolution is to not use something like AI, i just worry that there isnt enough people doing this to make it matter. This current AI stock market bubble is based on farts and rainbows, its going to be glorious to see it pop, but the world is going to suffer.
People use the term “the West” interchangeably with “US and historical allies after WW2 in Europe and North America that I will pretend are a single coherent block with the same history, social issues, internal affair and foreign policies (the US one) and that I will hate because of war/colonialism/slavery/lgbtq+”
The fact that France, Italy, Denmark, Poland, USA, and Brazil are radically different Western countries is unimportant to most that uses the world “West” in normal conversation.
I do not really care about west being used while geographically makes no sense. We are full of label that makes no sense. I would like at least to have a consistent definition.
Spend time doing shit about it then
I don’t understand why they just don’t charge AI data centers higher costs for electricity, so they are a net benefit to the area.
Why make it complicated? Just hit them with a “we hate you” tax.
because they are in the pockets of key people involved in making that decision
Because that would give power companies to control who gets electricity and who doesn’t. Just like how banks shouldn’t be allowed to dictate who was money, and grocery stores shouldn’t charge you by how much money you have, and the can’t increase prices during an emergency.
AI data centers can get electricity. They just gotta pay.
You know, like other large industrial users of electricity.
Ya, but they said it shouldn’t be that way. That data centers should get special treatment. In theory, I see why they’d think that way. But in practice, it’s a terrible choice. I just gave comparable examples.
Why not? Their usage profile is different from homes and industrial areas. Seems like prudent planning.
Unless you’re saying I could fill my residential basement with racks and sell it as a data center because “they shouldn’t be treated different.”
Well, under those circumstances, they would be paying less if they bought power in bulk :/ But again, I explained why not. By that logic, phone companies can decide who owns a phone line, power companies decide who gets electricity, water companies decide who gets water, banks decide who gets money, etc.
Phone companies already decide who owns a phone line.
They’re utilities.
That’s how utilities work.
Why would the electricity company making extra profits affect how beneficial the DCs are to a region?
Sure, it’d pay for a few more CEO yachts, but that’s about it.
Where I live, electricity companies are state owned, I’m guessing it’s not like that where you are. However, the taxes the company pays helps the area.
How does it benefit the area? The money goes to the power cartels either way, and the data centers harm the environment and the people living near them regardless of the electricity cost.
Energy money doesn’t offset water consumption or other environmental effects.
I don’t think we are going to stop AI. Better to put guardrails in place regarding energy and resource use and ensure the revenue generated results in a net gain for the area. If it doesn’t, then look for another area.
We may not be able to stop AI, but we can stop these massive data centers. AI is not dependent on them.
As long as they are providing a net benefit to the area, why be against them? Even building them would create hundreds if not thousands of jobs.
What fucking jobs? What fucking net benefit? Whose asshole are you licking by posting this shit?
Settle down Charlotte. The jobs to actually build the data center. It doesn’t build itself.
Why do you have to talk like that? Why not address the position instead? Do you think being profane makes you look more intelligent?
I think maybe you aren’t debating in good faith, you just want to shake your fist at the clouds. Which is an option, go for it.
What guarantees are there that they will use local labor? And when its built, what then?
Because they’re not providing a net benefit.
That’s on government. Set up laws so there must be a net benefit.
I don’t believe that’s possible with AI data centers.
Many local government’s aren’t on the home rule, they follow some form of the Dillon Rule. This applies to utilities and land use. For some local areas they are required by some degree to follow the State’s allocation and billing of utilities to remain classified as a public utility in the State.
In many areas our legal framework at the State and local level were never made to handle what’s coming down the pipe with new advances. This is why I always indicate that data centers and their impact need to be addressed at the local level. That’s why I think Federal regulation is the wrong step for the building part of AI. This is very much a local and/or State level that needs to desperately be answered there.
The good news is that we see more people who are involved with their local government with this issue. But this underlying issue has been one since the 1970s, it’s just that these companies have hired firms that are incredibly well versed in the shortcomings of local ordinances and State law. It’s super difficult to patch up flaws in the laws when they’re being exploited at rapid fire pace.
How the fuck is this what radicalizes people
Tell people they’re not going to have any way to get food or shelter and that they’ll be forever locked out of any security or safety and they get angry.
How the fuck is it not? If you have been following developments, these oligarch techbros are basically the US government, they are crashing the economy for their shortsighted profit and complete control over the consumer electronics market via cartels, causing rising prices on everything, not to mention they are using their tech for dystopian things like palantir, surveillance and other autocratic things.
I think the online rhetoric around AI has been way more apocalyptic than the more vague and abstract political stuff. So Trump raped some kids, that’s really bad but that’s not something people feel the need to go out and risk their lives over.
But data centers are going to steal all your water and there will be killbots patrolling the streets? All jobs will be taken away and everyone will be reduced to serfs or killed as surplus population? Drum that into a sufficiently mentally fragile subset of the population long and hard enough and you’ll get them worked up enough to feel like they need to strike first.
L take
It’s a fact AI is effectively stealing water supplies, FaceDeer. Don’t be so glib about it.
And the extreme rhetoric comes from the industries themselves, including Sam Altman’s own mealy mouth. And from industry shills who get good money to pretend that the thing is powerful and dangerous and worth investing in. Yudkowsky, Hinton, etc.
its sickening that the billionaires could just openly reveal all the horrifying things they do to people and no one would care, but only if things directly affect your personal life people care even a little. They could livestream themselves cannibalizing a live child and it wouldnt cause anything but momentary outrage that maybe lasts a bit longer than average.
Its good that people are rising up against this shit because all the negatives are true, but at the same time i have started to feel we really dont deserve good things.
How the fuck is this what radicalizes people
If you watch that Altman jerk, he actually tries to become the ruler of the world by means of his own tech.
Many labor movements throughout history started out due to advances in automation resulting in unemployment and rising inequality. This time around there’s also a huge cost of living crisis too, so things are lining up (you might hear “contradictions are sharpening” in marxist circles). If anything I’d have expected violence to start sooner and be more widespread, if someone gets laid off due to AI in this job market they literally have nothing to lose at this point.
@tonytins All to fight software… seems weird to me when there are people who rule the software
Huh? I don’t get it…
He’s saying you can take down 100 data centers…
Or one CEO.
Not that I’D ever advocate or cheer for violence, no sir.
Theoretically, both could be done. Theoretically.
CEOs are easily replaceable.
Not when the last CEO was publicly executed by an angry mob. That would not attract top talent…
UnitedHealthcare didn’t seem to have difficulty.
Thats only because the pattern is only recently emerging. Give it some time an the occupation might start seeing shortages
They were approving evety health claim for a fucking while back then.
i wish.
I don’t know he context of this image, but I love it.
One of the main complaints I hear about ai is the factor in how it affects the environment. We need tech that has a way smaller footprint
I hope we see juries acquitting these people when their cases come before the court.
if you live in a common law tradition country like the United States, go read about Jury Nullification right now. and then shut the fuck up about it. if you are summoned for Jury Duty don’t bring it up unless directly asked about it.
Stfu *until jury deliberation
Faster please. They’re teaching it in public school in Korea now. I teach English here, and I get people telling me they expect me to teach it, too. Never mind I try to explain it’s intellectual property theft. They never much cared about that sort of thing here.
You get “attempted murder” in America for setting a wall on fire and smashing glass?
In France, thats a Tuesday.
Our prosecutors like to throw a bunch of heinous charges and see what sticks. Its how they get people to agree with plea bargains.
the Central Park Five and the West Memphis Three are two of the most infamous cases of lazy cops pinning brutal crimes on groups of children and then coercing confessions out of them.
That’s really fucked up. It almost guarantees that there’s gonna be a percentage of people who are totally innocent but take prison time in a deal because they are threatened by too much more. In my country the system is the opposite - too lenient, which isn’t necessarily bad if accompanied by work to rehabilitate and reduce recidivism, but there’s very little of that either.
Yes.
i posted this comment on the wrong comment, meant to reply to you.
Your comment is geo-locked - I can’t read it because I’m in the UK and Finland has made the frankly sensible decision to block UK users because of our somewhat misnamed ‘online safety bill’! TIL. Interesting.
oh i was just mentioning the west Memphis Three and Central Park Five as very infamous cases of cops coercing false confessions of brutal crimes out of literal kids, then giving them life/death sentence depending on the individuals in the cases. one kid took an albert plea in order retain his innocence in writing but was still inprisoned and seen as guilty in the eyes of everyone. harrowing shit.
Thanks! Yeah, it’s horrible. Plus some parts of the US still use the death penalty. I’m not immovably against the death penalty - some people are just that irredeemable - but it definitely shouldn’t be an option in any legal system that can’t be 100% sure about guilt. At present, none of them can be that sure.
Yup, we have an insane amount of laws and no one can actually read through and remember the entire legal code.
The average American unwittingly commits 3 felonies a day.
Lol, I commit at least two before I even leave the house.
But it’s not violent to threaten and destroy people’s lives and livelihoods with your humanity cleansing technology.
Shit makes no sense.
It does make sense, because money and power override whats fair and decent in a society. Thats why all the evil people want money.
In the US you get charged with a bunch of bullshit as an intimidation tactic (or often for propaganda reasons). In court it gets haggled down to the actual charges. No penalty for prosecutors doing this.
Absolutely ridiculous that its happening in a legal court system that most people believe in too.
The assailant used chemical weapons in attempt to escape ICE.
Dude: I forgot to take my lactase and ate too much dairy for lunch and farted in his face while they were illegally arresting me.
I never knew this was a thing and it sounds very dystopian. Its almost as if these systems wants people to get as angry and frustrated as possible so they can lock them away.
so they can lock them away.
in for profit prisons, to be used as slave labor for corporations.
Yeah in America it seems the prisons are for profit, so what incentive do they have to rehabitate people when it means less profit?
Whoa whoa whoa… don’t get ahead of yourself there. That’s ONCE they’re in prison, but you can make millions sending them to prison.
Nothing surprises me about America… Well except if they would make a decision not based on extreme greed. That would surprise me.
You can get charged with assault on a police officer if a cop slips and falls while trying to assault you.
I’m a genxer. AI fucking sucks. LLM at Best. Hallucinatory shit bag at worst.
Gen X here as well. I’ve never willingly used it. Admittedly I haven’t had a reason but outside the summaries you get on searches et al I’ve never touched it.
I used it like 2 years ago to help write some copy on my web site, and it did fine. But it’s a novelty.
The numbers are serious. According to a report from 10a Labs’ Data Center Watch, at least $18 billion worth of data center projects have been blocked and another $46 billion delayed over the past two years owing to local opposition.
Oh, the poor, poor money! Can’t nobody pleeeease help the capital?
LMAO
that’s fortune magazine for ya
I forget: is it Fortune or Forbes that started putting out gaming guides a while back?
Forbes will host/publish anything, so them.
Imagine making 18k millionaires with that money. And the alternative is those blocked (likely for good reason) data centers.
World governments: I feel so unappreciated for all the help I continuously provide ☹️
Oh no, corpos didn’t get their wishlist items, please be outraged on their behalf
