Residents are protesting and calling for a moratorium on new AI data centres. And local politicians are listening.
On stage at the Russian Hall in East Vancouver Wednesday evening, an organizer of a six-week-old protest group addressed a crowd.
“So many people are responding to this,” said Alex Carson, a member of No AI Vancouver. “They understand, across the political spectrum, that this is a threat to our very humanity.”
A new national AI strategy by the federal government this week comes at a time when the country is confronting a wave of new high-powered data centres, while public sentiment could be souring on the impacts of the new technology.
Last month, Wired Magazine reported that Chinese researchers are growing increasingly concerned about the danger of a “Chernobyl” moment in the race to create superhuman intelligence.
The AI arms race, involving China, the United States, and a range of private-sector interests, is unfolding at a dizzying pace. It is a race to create the ultimate power machine, and there are no guardrails or protections for the public.
One Chinese researcher stated that it is like “driving faster and faster while the road gets narrower and the fog gets thicker.”
A national protest movement against AI data centres is emerging in Canada, as residents in a dozen cities push back against the speed and scale of projects they say could strain supplies of water and power and the quality of life in their communities.
Economic growth is generally understood as a process that delivers a material betterment of living standards over time. But growth had two other virtues, neither of which has until now received much attention. Both will be sorely missed now that meaningful growth has ended.
First, that economic growth can rescue us from the consequences of our own mistakes or misfortunes.
Every month, the Treasury Department releases a data set that almost nobody reads. No cable news chyron. No memorable acronym. It’s called the Treasury International Capital report, TIC data, and it is, for now at least, one of the more honest documents the federal government produces. Just money moving across borders, recorded in black and white.
Ian Angus introduces his new book Metabolic Rifts: Capitalism’s Assault on the Earth’s System, joined by Helena Sheehan, Inea Lehner, and David McNally. Hosted by Jess Spear and the Global Ecosocialist Network.
