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by gruez 15 days ago
>Datacenters are not utilities in the same way and have a much narrower social impact.

chatgpt has 900M weekly active users, so a significant fraction of the world population. Given that the user base probably skews towards rich countries, its proportion among the local population is probably even higher. On the other hand what do you think is the proportion of people who take trains, especially in the US? What about steel plants?
2 comments
manuelmoreale 15 days ago
A significant % of the population in rich countries, probably close to > 100%, benefits from transport infrastructure and sewage treatment and many other vital services. I don't see why 900M of free users on chatgpt is a relevant argument.
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gruez 15 days ago
>benefits from transport infrastructure

So if I drive to work then it's fair game to be NIMBY when they want to build a light rail station? You might say "but even if you don't use it, it's reducing traffic so you're still benefiting!", but if those kind of arguments are allowed, you can make similar arguments about how AI will make the whole country richer because of increased productivity or whatever.

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notarobot123 15 days ago
The _social_ utility of AI has yet to prove itself a net benefit. If it increases productivity great, but what about the displaced jobs, etc. Social impact isn't measured in active weekly users.
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