• kionay@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    1 day ago

    if someone comes up with an alternative way to use a bunch of that infrastructure to make money, I bet they could get a lot of business when the AI bubble pops and suddenly these datacenters are desperate to find a use for themselves

    • randy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 day ago

      I believe that’s pretty much what happened after the dot-com crash. A lot of fiber was laid during the bubble, it went dormant after the crash, but it was useful afterward as the internet continued growing.

      • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 day ago

        In a small, anecdotal way, I can say with confidence that the level of fiber trenching that happened (in a major metro area) from late 1999 through 2002 was on a whole other level.

    • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 day ago

      You mean like a crazy ai surveillance program? I take it with a grain of salt but I heard ppl say that’s how they caught Luigi. They have some super secret prototype program “eye in the sky” thing and they just said it was a mc d’s worker as cover.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        Even if that doesn’t exist yet in the USA, it’s definitely in the UK with all their CCTV stuff.

        And we know US law enforcement can use things like Ring doorbells.

      • BillyTheKid@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 day ago

        Datacenters aren’t helping, but they’re like 3-4% of emissions. It’s still manufacturing plastic crap and shipping across the ocean with bunker fuel burn causing 60% of it.

        But yeah, increased energy usage isn’t helping.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      Oh, they totally will. It’ll be another website boom. A lot of the big web presences will be damaged by the bust and hosting costs will fall through the floor. Less barrier to entry for making your little website and some portion of those will become problematicly large due to cheap cost driving bad design and we’ll go through the third or fourth round of this.

      Or, for deepest irony, some of the most optimally located datacenters could be converted into steel mills and industrial bakeries.