By the time James Cianci brought up the atomic bomb, Ansel had taken shelter under the table.<\/p>\n
Ansel is 30% poodle and 20% Bernese mountain dog with some border collie and other breeds mixed in.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a mutt,\u201d James said to the smiling parade of instant admirers who asked what \u201ckind\u201d of dog was lounging at the end of his leash.<\/p>\n
For a mutt, Ansel is irresistibly handsome.<\/p>\n
James is a professional woodworker and my crosstown Old Forge neighbor. He is also a face of the growing resistance to invasive hyperscale data center development and intrusive, exploitative industries in general.\u00a0The three of us met for coffee at Ficco\u2019s on Main Street in Old Forge. I recommend the caramel macchiato with an extra shot of espresso. It\u2019s liquid bliss.<\/p>\n
James is part of the Lower Lackawanna Valley Citizens Alliance<\/a> (LLVCA), a new nonprofit started by Old Forge, Newton and Ransom Twp. residents who recognize that in Our Stiff Neck of the Woods, we are all neighbors living on common ground under attack.<\/p>\n The seeds of the LLVCA were sown in a breaking news report by Sunday Times Staff Writer Frank Wilkes Lesnefsky. For the umpteenth time, If you\u2019re not following Frank, you don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n In July, Frank sounded the alarm<\/a> on plans to build a hyperscale data center campus across hundreds of acres of conservation and agricultural land on Bald Mountain in Ransom Twp. near the border with Old Forge. Part of the land would host a hydroelectric pump storage project drawing mine water from the Old Forge Borehole.<\/p>\n The project would sprawl to less than half a mile from Austin Heights and about a mile from the Old Forge School District. Suddenly, the data center invasion was knocking<\/a> at Old Forge\u2019s back door. James shared a link to the story in an Old Forge discussion group on Facebook. It set off a chain reaction that ultimately resulted in the hasty formation of the LLVCA.<\/p>\n The immediate backlash against the project on antisocial media apparently spooked the developer. Websites detailing the project disappeared. As of Friday, no applications for the project were filed.<\/p>\n That\u2019s fine with the LLVCA, but it\u2019s proceeding as if the project is imminent. From 1 to 3 p.m. on Sept. 6, the group will host an informational session on the project and how citizens can resist it at the Old Forge Fire Department, 375 Milwaukee Ave.<\/p>\n \u201cThe concern of the people that we\u2019ve spoken with is primarily pumping mine water to the top of a mountain that\u2019s literally surrounded by residential communities,\u201d James said. \u201cOn every lower downslope, there\u2019s a community in every direction\u2026<\/p>\n \u201c(The project is sited) on a mountain that is completely compromised by mine shafts and all kinds of voids. It\u2019s structurally unsound and it\u2019s just a disastrous project in concept.\u201d<\/p>\n After an hour or so chatting outside under a blazing August sun, James and I started to feel like ants under a magnifying glass. Ansel stayed cool and handsome in the shade under the table. I guess it was inevitable that the conversation would wind its way to comparisons between AI and another technology that could end the world.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some physical reality ramifications of certain new knowledge,\u201d James said. \u201cThe nuclear bomb was probably inevitable at a certain point long before it was ever built.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s an apt comparison. The race to build an atomic bomb was predicated on getting there before Hitler did. AI\u2019s engineers and backers insist the West must beat China to \u201cgenerative AI\u201d at any cost. Literally.<\/p>\n James and I agreed that beating the Nazis to the bomb was a win, but the Manhattan Project and its tests were conducted primarily in the desert near temporary \u201ctowns\u201d built for that purpose.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe we\u2019re there with AI, but that doesn\u2019t mean that we have to build AI in the middle of a town,\u201d James said. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t do that with a nuclear bomb. Why are we building AI with no safeguards in the middle of civilization?\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m vehemently against building AI at all, which led to another apt comparison with the Manhattan Project. Before the first detonation, Los Alamos scientists calculated a tiny but non-zero chance the device could burn off Earth\u2019s atmosphere and instantly kill the planet. Ultimately, the theory was debunked, but no one was 100% sure of that when they pushed the button.<\/p>\n AI is projected to unleash the destructive force of billions of atomic bombs. It may eventually produce previously unimaginable breakthroughs such as cures for cancer, but first it will lay waste to life as we puny humans know it.<\/p>\n Its own architects say so. Here\u2019s Sam Altman, CEO and Chief Psychopath at OpenAI, in a 2015 interview:<\/p>\n \u201cI think that AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world. But in the meantime, there will be great companies created with serious machine learning.\u201d<\/p>\n Sorry Sam, but that seems like an awfully lopsided trade. Altman and others leading the AI \u201carms race\u201d routinely admit that they don\u2019t know what will happen when AI reaches \u201csuperintelligence.\u201d Recent AI \u201cjailbreaks\u201d show its architects have already lost control of the monsters they\u2019re building.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody knows what will happen if AI actually becomes sentient,\u201d James said. \u201cWhat will it think about people? What will it do? What will happen? No one knows. And we\u2019re just gonna take that chance, like with the atomic bomb?\u201d<\/p>\n It seems inevitable that Altman and the rest of what investigative journalist and author Gil Duran dubbed \u201cThe Nerd Reich<\/a>\u201d will gleefully take that chance at any cost. Literally. It\u2019s not \u201cinevitable,\u201d however, that Altman and his fellow luxury bunker \u201cbroligarchs\u201d will take our small towns, farmland, trees, air, water and wildlife to fuel the apocalypse they can\u2019t wait to trigger.<\/p>\n Organized resistance is rising across the nation. Grassroots groups like Stop Archbald Data Centers<\/a>, Save Browndale Mountain<\/a> and now the LLVCA<\/a> are living proof that humans can organize and pressure the powerful to take no for an answer.<\/p>\n Thursday evening, I rejoined James at the Old Forge Planning Commission meeting. Ansel stayed handsome at home. James was there to present his notes on the borough\u2019s draft zoning ordinance, which he judged \u201cpretty comprehensive\u201d but \u201cnot restrictive enough.\u201d<\/p>\n The commissioners\u2019 reaction was respectful, if a bit defensive. Commission members didn\u2019t know borough council had shared a draft of the ordinance with James. The ordinance is still very much a work in progress. At this point, what matters is that they\u2019re working on it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no easy task. Pennsylvania\u2019s Municipal Planning Code (MPC) overwhelmingly favors developers. It dictates that local zoning must make room for every commercial use, no matter how objectionable. The MPC\u2019s \u201cconditional use\u201d process is fine for regulating the placement of strip clubs and \u201cadult\u201d bookstores, but wholly inadequate for dealing with hyperscale data centers and other massive, high-impact industries.<\/p>\n It\u2019s absurd and unfair to expect local officials elected by the tiny fraction of citizens who bother to vote in municipal elections to make decisions this momentous. Local governments are designed to keep an eye on expenses, make sure roads are paved and plowed and oversee police and other departments, not fend off corporate invaders with unlimited money and unmatchable connections to power.<\/p>\n All that said, the lopsided system is unlikely to be righted anytime soon, if ever. Local governments are stuck being the first and best line of defense and are under immense pressure to get it right. In my experience, it\u2019s better to give grace than grief. As an Old Forge resident and human being, I\u2019m grateful my neighbors in borough government are working to get our zoning house in order before developers come to burn it down.<\/p>\n