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Founder and CEO of Social Capital, a venture firm; co-host of the All-In podcast and an early Facebook executive. Writes an annual letter and a weekly newsletter on markets and technology.

• Meta's Dina Powell McCormick: The Case for Data Centers, Backlash, AI Job Boom & Meta's Future

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Writes on effective altruism, energy and the arithmetic behind arguments people repeat — including how much electricity a chatbot query actually uses.

• AI safety and the data center backlash

  Planting a flag for AI safety as a place where we won’t abjectly bullshit you

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Writer and former Substack product manager; publishes essays and interviews on technology, culture and China at jasmi.news.

• The data center backlash is a product of two mutually reinforcing dynamics: 1) Locally, it's material concerns (noise, water, electricity) and process failure (NDAs, tax subsidies) 2) Nationally, it's broad anti-corporate and anti-AI sentiment (AI companies are screwing you over to get rich off dumb toys) Social media + political campaigns amplify hyperlocal grievances into a broad populist movement, and there's no compelling "pro data center faction" to make the opposite case
  Quoting@JeremiahDJohnsPeople are about twice as likely to approve of **coal plants** being built nearby as opposed to data centers. Coal plants use more water and pollute more. They create comparable noise pollution. There's no way this makes sense outside a media panic.

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Writes on effective altruism, energy and the arithmetic behind arguments people repeat — including how much electricity a chatbot query actually uses.

• I'm very skeptical that China has played a meaningful role in the US data center backlash

  The evidence we have is pretty weak

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Writer and former Substack product manager; publishes essays and interviews on technology, culture and China at jasmi.news.

• data center road trip // day 6-7 I don't think the data center backlash is about AI being evil or risky — but it does reflect people finding AI uniquely useless for example: is the data center backlash just like the backlash to solar farms? @nicholas_bagley observed that both movements use classic NIMBY playbooks: Facebook groups, FOIA requests, packing city council. both also involve land use tensions between rural towns and state directives. yet the Saline, MI activists I met were pro-solar farms and anti-data center. first, data center deals are more secretive with more NDAs and bigger $$…
  Quoting@jasminewsunI’m spending the next week driving around Wisconsin and Michigan to get a firsthand view of the data center buildout and backlash am visiting sites, talking to tons of people — tradespeople, activists, planners, residents — then writing up a story lmk what questions I should dig into!

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Writer and former Substack product manager; publishes essays and interviews on technology, culture and China at jasmi.news.

• data center road trip // day 4-5 the AI backlash is bipartisan & showing up in politics in a big way - Abdul El-Sayed brought Bernie and AOC to rally with him in Lansing. all 3 decried AI oligarchy (Bernie with the longest spiel) - in WI, DSA member Francesca Hong is leading the Dem governor’s primary. she hopes to win rural conservatives as the only candidate backing a data center moratorium - a canvasser for Will Lawrence in MI7 told me that 90% of the doors she knocked on Saturday named data centers as a top issue these are purple battleground states, yet pollsters are finding Dems and Rep…
  Quoting@jasminewsunI’m spending the next week driving around Wisconsin and Michigan to get a firsthand view of the data center buildout and backlash am visiting sites, talking to tons of people — tradespeople, activists, planners, residents — then writing up a story lmk what questions I should dig into!

  data centersRelated

Writes and podcasts Volts, on the technology, politics and policy of decarbonisation; covered energy and climate at Vox and Grist before that.

• Making sense of the data center backlash

  A crossover with Jigar Shah's "Energy Empire" podcast!

  data centersenergyRelated

Writer and former Substack product manager; publishes essays and interviews on technology, culture and China at jasmi.news.

• I’m spending the next week driving around Wisconsin and Michigan to get a firsthand view of the data center buildout and backlash am visiting sites, talking to tons of people — tradespeople, activists, planners, residents — then writing up a story lmk what questions I should dig into!

  data centersRelated

Family therapist and founder of Relational Life Therapy. Author of I Don't Want to Talk About It, How Can I Get Through to You? and Us; argues that Western individualism is what makes couples' work hard.

• The Best Men Can Be: Reflecting on the Infamous Gillette Ad

  On January 13th 2019, Gillette released its already famous commercial, “The Best Men Can Be,” which garnered an immediate and emphatic backlash. The commercial juxtaposed men engaging in bullying behaviors with men perf…

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