[meristohm]

What are the environmental costs? Given that we exist in an ecosystem, and rely on myriad other life for our own healthy-enough existence, focusing on jerbs and the cost to build the data centers, and ignoring all the other costs (to name a few: water, solar absorption potential of plants, rainwater absorption potential of the land, pollution (air, land, water) from all the related energy conversion (and commuting, unless all the employees are walking or cycling to work?), and psychological impacts of robots).

I would argue that the county (an arbitrary demarcation in the first place; I prefer watersheds) would see a measurable lift over the next several hundred years if instead of data centers we tended the land in a way that increased species diversity and also food available from that land. I can't eat data center, though I suppose its existence could help optimize exploitation of land, farm workers, and the transportation of crops, while the rest of us indulge in all sorts of diversions?