[raincole]

Because it's a very strange way to view the economics. Yes, AI uses energy. But using energy itself isn't an inherently bad thing. It'll also incentive people to invest more in renewable energy too.

> Additionally, many residents who live near AI data centres are seeing increased electricity bills due to the amount of electricity those data centres use.5 That's right, trillion dollar companies are using you to subsidize their power bill!

I'm glad the author put this paragraph early into this article though. Saved me a few minutes reading the rest.

[scarmig]

His argument proves far too much: it would apply even if every data center built an entirely renewable dedicated solar farm to power it. After all, energy is fungible: the newly built solar farm could be going to help consumers transition to renewable.

There is a root issue here: prices of nonrenewables don't incorporate the costs of climate change. But that's a much broader issue, and otherwise the market price system is excellent at allocating energy to its most economically beneficially uses.

[max51]

>it would apply even if every data center built an entirely renewable dedicated solar farm to power it. After all, energy is fungible: the newly built solar farm could be going to help consumers transition to renewable.

No, because that solar farm would have never been built in the first place without the datacenter. You either get both or you get none of them. It's completely different than using an existing solar farm that was already there before anyone started planning for that datacenter