Sudden tragedies test human capacity to respond in real time. When our alleged leaders are caught flat-footed and called out for their failures of preparation and imagination, they routinely fall back on some version of the ancient excuse, “No one could have seen this coming.”
“No one has a crystal ball that reveals the future,” they protest. “Some things just can’t be planned for or prevented.”
This excuse generally covers natural disasters that strike with little or no advance warning. A massive earthquake, for instance, can be expected for decades but still shocks the system when it finally arrives.
After-the-fact alibis are worthless in the wake of invasive AI data center development. The crystal ball is there for all willing to see. It’s cracked and leaking poison, a time-lapse disaster that can be prevented simply by listening to millions of witnesses standing up and shouting, “STOP!”
Among the most absurd elements of the data center “debate” raging across the nation is the ridiculous notion that there is any reasonable doubt about their overwhelmingly negative impacts on host communities and society as a whole.
Data centers have generated increases in tax revenue and temporary jobs in some places, but they have caused economic, environmental and public health havoc practically everywhere they already operate. The shallow payoffs are dwarfed by the deep sacrifices required in exchange.
Meanwhile, elected officials who swore oaths to protect the public interest are either cheerleading for invasive AI data center development or following the “committed bystander” script that always results in preventable disaster for citizens who don’t deserve it and can’t afford the consequences.
Said consequences are reflected in the headlines daily. Water shortages. Electricity rate spikes. Grid strain. Water, air and soil contamination. Noise and light pollution and localized spikes in temperature. Increased rates of miscarriage, cancer and other diseases among populations living in the shadows of invasive AI data centers.
The evidence against invasive AI data center development is so strong, Erin Brockovich (yes, that Erin Brockovich) created an online map of operational and proposed data centers across the nation. Each pin represents a massive earthquake in the communities under attack.
Brockovich’s map looks like a developing diagram of a full-scale invasion — because it is.
I still get razzed by rubes who identify more with their political affiliations than with their status as human beings, but more and more Republicans, Democrats and independents are waking up to the fact that there’s nothing partisan about an existential threat to everyone who breathes.
Grassroots organizations like Stop Archbald Data Centers are coming together across the nation and delaying or stopping invasive AI data center projects. Local opposition blocked $18 billion worth of data center projects and delayed another $46 billion in projects over the past two years, according to Data Center Watch, the Wall Street standard for tracking the industry.
Time is on humanity’s side. The longer these preventable disasters are stalled, the less likely they will ever be built.
Even if every data center “campus” proposed for Lackawanna County broke ground today, they would likely be obsolete before they went online. The technology is advancing faster than even the billionaire tech “broligarchs” behind it ever imagined.
Those “broligarchs” haven’t been shy about the trickle-down dystopia they conspire to create. The plan is to automate, digitize and monetize everything from jobs, money and privacy to access to universal needs like clean air, water and food.
The goal is to reduce us all to columns of ones and zeroes dependent upon the benevolence of an artificial overlord. AI data centers are not necessary to power the internet. They are essential to establishing and enforcing control by greedy elites who view humanity as a profitable nuisance.
There is no sense in speculating about the downsides of the most speculative industry in human history. We don’t have to “wait and see” how this story unfolds.
The invasive AI data center “debate” is a test of human capacity to respond to a time-lapse disaster in real time. Data Center Watch estimates that at least 142 activist groups across 24 states have come together to resist invasive AI data center development. It’s a good start.
If our elected officials keep cheerleading or stick with the “committed bystander” script, what has already happened and is happening practically everywhere data centers operate will happen here.
By then, it’ll be too late to stand up and shout, “STOP!”
CHRIS KELLY, The Times-Tribune columnist, is on humanity’s side. How about you? Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Bluesky