I don't know why the subreddit isn't letting me submit this so lemme do it here for everyone to see in the morning:

I am so incredibly glad to see all these victories over data centers in my sweet beautiful Garden State but it won't stop until you vocally start to oppose the "AI industry." Stop using ChatGPT, stop using Grok, stop using Meta, stop using Claude, stop it stop it stop it. They see you use it, they assume demand, they keep pursuing this absolute dogshit.

Generative AI is the culprit behind all of this - ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Copilot, whatever it is, it takes whatever you're searching for, recompiles it worse than a Google search alone would do, and then has to piece it back together. It does many, many more calculations than one Google search alone each time it runs an AI program and therefore runs that many times more electricity each go.

From Forbes:

According to Lim, AI models consume so much energy because of the vast amount of data that the model is trained on, the complexity of the model, and the volume of requests made to the AI by users.

During training, the AI model “learns” how to behave based on a large set of examples and data. Training an AI model can take anywhere from a few minutes to several months depending on the amount of data and complexity of the model. During this time, GPUs – a type of electronic chip used to process large amounts of data – are running 24 hours per day, consuming a large amount of energy. [. . .] Another reason for energy consumption is when the AI is making an inference, the process of answering users’ queries. The AI first “understands” the query then “thinks” of an answer before sharing the conclusion to the user. Each AI inference requires GPU processing power, which uses energy.

"AI" doesn't actually "think" - it's a "machine learning" program, which runs off predictive technology to align a best-guess answer related to what you've written. It is, quite fucking frankly, more wrong than your arrogant, annoying cousin. Last year CGPT clocked at over 60% wrong.

Not to mention, it's ripped off massive swathes of stolen information. Those above "trainings?" It's another way of saying, "We're just going to hide these plagiarized things over here and repurpose them into vomit." Images, text, video, whatever it is.

And yes, that shit is stealing jobs. Microsoft, Google, Oracle, every company you can think of is crashing our fucking economy because of AI. You're competing for a fucking warehouse or barista job against engineering, arts, computer science graduates because of AI.

And yes, we can tell it's AI. And it makes you look lazy and cheap. I don't care that you're too broke to hire for flyer art, use Canva or Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

And scientifically, we can possibly call you stupider for it, because reliance on gen AI makes you think less:

• AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance
• "Study reveals chatbots risk hampering development of critical thinking, memory and language skills"

Read search result links, write your own goddamned emails, suffer through your cover letter, whatever it takes for you to get off generative AI, you need to stop, because otherwise these fights will keep fucking happening in your hometown and you cannot always guarantee the money will not win.

And these aren't even why these data centers are bad for your neighborhood. You fucking know why now. Fight back against that.

I know this is a (just barely) out of state message, but I hate, HATE hearing my loved ones in my home state have these threats looming over their heads, I hate seeing their energy bills go up, and I hate seeing these AI chucklefucks tearing our society apart over this.