Clayton Morris: Blackouts & Water Shortages, Tech Overlords Build AI Dystopia & Crush Resistance

Clayton Morris, thank you so much for doing this.

You've a lot of us have been focused on the AI/data center story from a badly informed tech perspective, trying to answer the question, will machines become our masters? Is this the end of the human race? But there's another component to the story which may be bigger, and it has to do with the physical world, the demands of AI on that world, and the short-term implications for the rest of us,

because of the construction of these data centers, and you have been on this more than anyone I know, so can you just frame the way that you're looking at AI/data centers? Why is it important?

“Well, I think it's so important for these communities.”

You're seeing if we step back, there's so much math involved in this, and I would say that every real estate story is all local, so it's all different what's happening in New York, from what's happening in Texas right now, what's happening in Quincy, Washington, or Homer, City, Pennsylvania, like it's all different, but it's all of the same animal, so to speak, and so I don't even think we're at the beginning of this, because there's so much discussion

about AI, just flip on CNBC or Bloomberg or anything, it's AI everywhere, we're going to hit an AI bubble, we haven't even started, that this build out for AI data centers across the United States, and I honestly think we're at the precipice of a major transformation for humanity, and we won't know for years whether it's good or bad, there were studies done on Google, the Google effect back in like 2011, our kids like outsourcing their ability to search for things

to Google, like think about how funny that is now, in hindsight, all these years later,

“but we are, I think at the beginning of this build out, we haven't even begun to see the thousands”

of data centers and the way that this is going to change humanity for good and bad, and I think that anyone who says they know for sure doesn't know, and I think a lot of these companies

that are spending $500 billion, we just got word that in video, is going to take out credit

in order to build out massive amounts of infrastructure. So this is like a new phase of this now, not even their own money, it's going to be a credit story, borrowing money at enormous sums from Wall Street in order to build out this infrastructure. So just at like a micro level, if you just think about communities and what it means to just UNI, it means right now increased prices for kilowatt hours, just to run your home. It means increased prices at the grocery store, just

to get additional groceries because the cost of everything has gone up. It means water shortages across the United States, we're already seeing it, we're already seeing it, it's effects on ranchers. So it's so big, and there's so many pieces of this, you've got the robotics piece of this, which is the human robotics layer. So AI will of course be involved in every level of robotics,

“which is going to be as if you listen to Elon Musk and I believe this smart, very smart person,”

he says that his Tesla robotics division is going to be the biggest product in human history is Optimus robots. So if you take him at his word, or even if half of his word is true, and that's just one company, the human robotics element of this is going to be absolutely massive. And of course, then the AI, the compute power that will be layered inside of that hardware, the requirements for that are going to be astronomical, and that's just one piece of it.

Every company that exists right now, just about every company is incorporating AI, it's like the AI that you don't see that I think is in many ways the most invasive of all of this. So for instance, Zoom, like you and I are talking right now on Zoom, recently sort of shifted to becoming really an AI productivity company in many ways. That's their focus now. Forget being just like, hey, we're going to have a meeting over Zoom,

now they've added in a take notes feature, which can use AI and basically take notes for you during

your meeting. And now their focus is AI being built into everything you can think of. It may ask you to pause and ask your mission first. So just to take Zoom as an example, so Zoom, again, being this software program that allows people to speak on video conferencing anywhere between each other anywhere in the world. Based with their saying is we're going to transcribe every conversation, and that's going to be helpful as a productivity device somehow. But what happens to the data?

So the substance of your conversation is now on a Zoom server. Do you have control over what's done with that data with your words? With that information?

to delete your data. But of course, when the FBI then wants to subpoena that data, suddenly it manages to show back up again. So later, I thought, you know, like that, you could just like delete that stuff. For Google tells you that, hey, after 30 days, we delete this stuff. It's all there. It's

fractals. It's always going to be there. So Zoom, you know, you have opting into this,

the take notes feature. And I don't know the full back end of what Zoom's operation looks like. But most of it is all built on Amazon web services. Most of it is built on Amazon's infrastructure from from Palantir to flock safety. You know, they'll tell you that they've got their own proprietary layer of what they do with that data. But all of it's built on like Amazon

“infrastructure and this sort of this back end infrastructure. So where is that data going?”

It's living in these data centers. And being built out at a clip that we've never seen before, like so right now, there are about 809 give or take a few data centers being built right now. There's about 4,800 of them that are currently built. There's another, I think, 3900 that are

in that have been projected to be built over the next year, doubling the amount of data centers

in the United States. And they're not getting smaller. They're getting bigger. They're getting more massive. Take for instance, like the Project Stargate in Texas and Abelene, Texas, massive, massive infrastructure that Trump, of course, was championing. And a lot of this was opened up. We shouldn't forget at the very beginning of the Trump presidency with all these executive orders so that you could start building a data center without even getting environmental

permits. So you could start the construction. So if like the redacted news, you know,

“the data center wants to get started. I could go out tomorrow. Same with buy some land and I could”

start this construction local permits and get started, forget the EPA requirements. Like how

much pollutants will be spun off as a result of the diesel generator backups or the water

influx or any of the particulate matter that will be spun off as a result of the the center, the water usage, all of that don't worry about it because now the EPA doesn't care. You can get those, you can already start construction. And then, of course, on top of that, you have Trump's AI litigation team, which is pretty funny when you look at it. So the Department of Justice has built like an AI litigation team to go out to different states.

Like you can see where the priorities are. So if there's a state or a community that's says we don't want data centers in our backyard or we're putting onerous rules and place in regulations in our backyard because we don't want these things here. Well, here comes the Trump's Department of Justice and the AI litigation team to town. They're not staying at a best Western when they arrive. And they're going to start to look at your community and sue you for onerous regulations.

Why? Data centers. This was part of that executive order. There's an executive actions at the very beginning of Trump's presidency. So glad we have an AI litigation team in place. We'd say the Department of Justice, which I thought we owned as citizens, is now working on behalf of private companies, which we do not own in order to force communities to subsidize those private companies? Yes. So under the attorney general, under this AI

litigation team, this task force. We'll go out and they'll see, hey, you know, did this community and upstate New York put in place some toxic diesel particulates zoning law that's not going to allow this data center to be built because they'll need backup diesel generators. And when they kick on every 30, you know, every few days to test the diesel backup, and it's going to shoot off these particulates and so forth. We don't want that here. We don't want it polluting our

“air in our waterways, by the way. So that's what this task force will be. Or maybe we just don't”

want it. Maybe we just don't. We think it's uglier. We disagree with the whole project or it doesn't matter what the motive is. It's our community. And don't we have some right to shape its future because it's ours? We are strongly pro dog on this show. We make no secret. That dogs are one of the great blessings of this life. And to keep them healthy, we recommend Dutch. It's the solution to skyrocketing veterinary costs. Why are those costs so high? Well,

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And there's going to be you know the loop holes that'll be used here and we'll see what this data AI litigation task force does. It's like the you know the white supremacy task force or the anti-semitism task force that'll be deployed across the United States. So it'll be interesting to see like what loop holes are employed, but good news is like 500 or so different communities have already fought back against this. There was a friend of the show, Derek Brows and and how

Kimon War put on a day of action on the beginning of August against these data centers. So people around the country to come out and say we don't want these things in our backyard at least kind of drawing attention to them. We don't want the noise. We don't want the pollution. And there's so much just misinformation and there's fear about all of these data centers right now and there's just a lot of there's just a lot of BS that's kind of floating around about how these things operate.

“Maybe we could talk about it if you want to kind of dive a little more deeply.”

Well I want to dive very deeply into it. I mean you've already you know we're 10 minutes into this you've already shocked me. So I had no idea that was happening and you know if you were to have dinner with me I would pretend to be highly informed on everything, but obviously that's not true because I didn't even know this. I didn't know that there was an apartment adjust as AI task force designed to pummel communities into accepting things they don't want, which is to say taking

sovereignty from American citizens. So yeah I do want to go into greater depth. So tell me about the misconceptions or as you said misinformation. Well for one thing there's if you listen to Wall Street are you listen to the people that the sick of fans you know like on CNBC or the people that love to have these CEOs on their shows and you know access journalists you know who love to have these CEOs on their shows and kind of promote AI data center buildouts and all the

new technology that they're rolling out. And so some of this technology is is good right there is actual good cooling technology that's emerging from companies like VIRT which instead of using water that would cool it with using evaporation technology which is the big it one of the biggest

problems forget the electricity piece of this for a second that's big that's the other big

part of the story. But the way it is energy you know it's like you can you can rob Peter to pay Paul's it we're not using water oh yeah but you're using the energy now the electricity to use dry cooling to cool okay so it's just like it's like the shell game it's a moving things around a board you know so when you see these like CEOs come on CNBC or Bloomberg or whatever and tell you how they've solved the cooling problem because they don't need water okay now what

about the massive amounts of electricity that you need now to use dry cooling so it's anyway it's well it takes resources to make things that's just the bottom one it takes resources to make things and the supply of resources is finite so anyone it doesn't mean you shouldn't make things you should but every act of creation is a trade-off so it's not clear why we have to lie about that let's just be honest about it but anyway so but to the question of water can you go into that how

much water exclusive of this new and promising technology just described but like in general how much water is it take to cool a dating data center hundreds of millions of gallons and most let's be clear most of the data centers are using this evaporative cooling system and I mean by a huge percentage so you know that's great that we've got some new technology out there that uses cooling plates and it keeps it in them like a closed loop so the water is like right up against the

the computers the GPUs and then it kind of flows through and it gets cooled almost like by an

go somewhere right so it pushes off somewhere it's not but the water usage yes you're limiting that

“but on almost of them overwhelmingly it's evaporative cooling and so your it's all just being wasted”

hundreds of millions of gallons if you think about an average American home about you know

200 gallons to like run an American home your 300 million gallons or 500 million gallons of water

just for these data centers and we're talking like small data centers so these communities are already seeing they're already pressed and if you go to the desert southwest or you move out towards you know the Colorado Nevada Utah Wyoming a lot of the ranchers in these areas are at their limit with their ability to get water to just feed their heads a cattle so everything is so dry I just interviewed a rancher who's dealing with this right now so in order to get permits

to pull you know to pull water to feed their heads a cattle they have to go to the city the municipality they have to get those right but most of those permits are already used like they're

“not there's no like new permits just like sitting there for Bob Rancher to come grab so they're”

already tapped tapping into these aquifers I mean requiring them to go down pull out any kind of water they can from these aquifers right so those are already tapped a lot in the west of the United States and then on top of that now you have these data centers that are coming in and all these ranchers are asking the question how are they able to get water like we've applied for permits and we as ranchers are not allowed to get water but but they are where are they getting the permit

so they're they're carving out these special permits for these ranchers which is are misused me for these data centers which is unbelievable on it on its surface and so these ranchers then are having to compete for what little water scraps are left to feed their head of cattle which brings up a larger question about wanting to decimate the beef industry of course and you have

you know 68 million heads of cattle how many of those are being whittled away whittled away

whittled away and then you've got wildfires out west on top of that which is destroying the grazing land so they don't have enough water for that but the data centers are fine to get these water rights somehow people should ask questions about that like how are they able to get these carve outs to tap into these aqua furs in ways that these ranchers are not it's very interesting so the misinformation right now is this idea that well now we've got this new sort of liquid cooling

set up and so therefore we're not using as much water and that is the case in some in some cases with some of this new technology but a lot of that is even built out yet but you're seeing like

“these companies like vertive like exploding I think they're even more valuable now like share price”

not more valuable but like more than Amazon because they're selling these these cooling technologies that they can use in these data centers so that's just one piece of it but the majority of these data centers are using an enormous amount of water that we simply don't have and you're having these communities now fighting over it in order to you know homeowners who are having to deal with this now and of course the other big piece of this is the smart meters so just take for example like

Aurora Colorado not too far from me where they implemented these smart water meters so they can monitor at every 15 minute increments like the amount of water that you're using as a you know as a as a private citizen compared to the water that's being used from these data centers I don't know what sort of metering system they have on these data centers but there's a massive data center called QTS in Aurora Colorado massive huge and in that in that setup

they've got they're using an enormous amount of water and the homes around Aurora Colorado are using now these smart meters to monitor how much irrigation how much water they're using and they've sent out thousands of notices to people that live there that hey you've used too much water you're using too much water and these smart meters are only gonna increase across the United States there's many communities that are now rolling out these water smart meters in order to

make sure that you're not using enough water but are those same other same you know municipality sending out notices to the data centers to let them know how much water they're using you know a lot of people hit that afternoon slump but immediately reach for another cup of coffee

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gonna use nicotine you don't have some options get the new frontier collection out out pouch dot com slash Tucker I'm confused I mean so they're one of the long-term and distressing trends in the United States is the explosion in population in places that don't have the resources to sustain that population so I'm thinking Clark County Nevada Maricopa County Arizona you know Phoenix Vegas Denver um but parts California like they don't have the water for this number of people

so we know this no one seems to care this is gonna be a huge issue going forward but there are other parts of the United States government west for example that have a ton of water and not a lot of people so why would you ever build a data center in Colorado for example which already doesn't have the resources to support the people like who's making these decisions

“and why do you have any idea why why is every data center not being built on Lake Superior?”

Well because the money so just take for example I believe it's probably the money but a lot of it is these data center buildouts now a couple pieces I'll take the I'll take Quincy Washington I think it's an interesting sort of anecdote of a story so the propaganda around Quincy Washington is that data centers save this town data centers came in use the hydroelectric power here and the influx the tax basis now I think was like three different centers that were built three different data centers

the amount of influx of like a 56% percent increase in taxes flew into like Quincy Washington so they built a hundred and twenty million dollar new school they built all new sewer infrastructure inside of Quincy Washington um parks water slide parks for the kids crime has dropped and they point and they blame it specifically on the data centers so all of the money that flows into these communities from their taxes is exorbitant so they don't want to turn away from

the traditional tax revenue right and these communities and that to me is it's always the money

right that's at the heart of it is clearly it's clearly the tax revenue that's coming

“in the other piece of this is that I think these companies are telling they're telling lies but”

they're certainly they're certainly structuring these deals in a very interesting way which is we will we're not going to pull from your resources so we're not going to tap the electricity in your town we're not going to tap the excess water we figured that out which is which is laughable because there's always the spillover effect of these things it's not self-contained but a lot of these new data centers being built professed to be self-contained

which is we're going to produce our own power so you don't have to worry about it so we're going to use these SMRs these small nuclear reactors these modular nuclear reactors there's companies like new scale technology which you know exploding these like and so Amazon can put a nuclear reactor at one of these data centers a small nuclear one we don't need to rely on three miles island which by the way is being revitalized right now in order to power data centers

I know if people recall the fun that happened at three miles island but so that's being revitalized right now for data centers so they can build self-contained power modular nuclear technology the other story and I was speaking to a source at Amazon who was just crazy to hear

defunct coal plants or other power plants that are nearby these data centers and

“if they can't get the power they need from the local community they just buy up the”

like the coal powered plant or the you know the the other the other the other power plants that were there they buy them up and then they revitalized them bring in a couple thousand people build it out to a new a new energy complex and then oh you think oh that's great so now that that coal plant that you're taking over which is defung to closed three years ago or four years ago or 10 years ago under regulations and onerous regulations and so forth you're going to

revitalize it and then the community will benefit no no no no no no they're going to get all the power

so they're not giving any of this power back to the community the coal plants specifically

and the ones that in Nevada and Colorado where Amazon is coming in and building these facilities

“they're buying them up and revitalizing them and they're turning them into natural gas facilities”

so that it's far cleaner they don't have to deal with the coal regulations and then they will use all of that energy oh okay so then they don't have an effect on the community then right so then energy prices won't have gone up in the community oh no no no in fact the sources I've spoken to in Amazon said absolutely the energy costs will go up in those communities and they already have so but so their self-contained why am I energy costs going up it's because the spillover effect

of it all and the grid capacity and everything else so you're already seeing this across the country people without data centers even in their backyard yet are seeing increases to their kilowatt hours their per kilowatt hours upwards of twelve thirteen fourteen percent just in prices we in Colorado have already seen prices skyrocket even without the massive data center buildouts because it's future projections so it's it's the auction process of electricity so the future projections on the auction

process believe that they will be over capacity they believe and local communities are saying expect blackouts if I could I'll give you an example Homer City Pennsylvania western Pennsylvania near where I went to college out there University Pittsburgh and then whole area in western PA this is a really interesting anecdote because Homer City they you know their energy prices have already increased but they're building this map they the the data centers have have come in there have revitalized

the old coal plants that are there and we're shut down in 2023 now they're building this massive Homer City energy complex on top of it converting it to natural gas but the people of Homer City don't get the benefit of it they don't get any of that it's going to go to the data

“center buildout and I think the mayor the other members of the local city council have already”

seen those prices go up and have said that we will expect blackouts this is Pennsylvania this isn't

Texas where you get incredible heat waves you know you still get heat waves and think but not like

Texas or Arizona so expect blackouts like over the next few years our grid cannot handle this and so the people of this area that live in this surrounding area can can expect to see their homes affected by this and blackouts that will unfold in these in these neighborhoods and that again that's Pennsylvania western Pennsylvania nowhere near like Abelene Texas or Arizona so these things are very real for people and the costs that will be passed on to the consumers where energy costs

are already skyrocketing is is very real I know the Trump administration says while we're putting this cap on as part of this you know this AI buildout we're putting this cap on it so that we're going to make these producers pay that but there's no evidence that they are like we are already paying more for electricity already I don't know what it is for you like in Maine like if you've seen it there if you know like what data sent it because it seems like I'm looking the

data center map in Maine is like very minimal for buildouts from what I can tell but so you have the future projections of costs of this energy buildout that are already affecting people I mean I guess I'm really I'm struck by so many parts of the story but the one that I'm fixated on maybe most is the total powerlessness of the people who live in this country they have any effect on any of this at all going back to what you said at the outset of the conversation about the

Department of Justice targeting anyone who complains about this or tries to slow it down

what the purpose of it is I don't think there's been much of an attempt to convince us that this

“will improve our lives which is to say the technology itself AI data centers is that how is that”

good for me how does it make this a better country for my kids no one's spending any time trying to convince us that it is it's all scaring the crap out of people maybe for good reason maybe not I really don't know what the motive is you talk to an AI person someone developing AI and they spend very little time telling you how this is going to cure cancer and a whole lot of time telling you how it may end humanity so it's like I don't really get what's going on here but I know that people aren't

for it has anybody had any success in protecting their own communities from destruction by this

maybe New York state is the only real story right now from a state level where you have the state

now banning the build out of data centers right now so and you know you've governed our habit in Texas who is now putting a one-year moratorium on data center buildouts through an audit process

“so you have to prove like your energy efficiency and all of that in order to be built out in Texas”

but also I love I love the hypocrisy there so it's okay that we can have like massive child trafficking operations like happening right right the state of Texas and right under your nose and old Walmart facilities and thousands of children being trafficked and but we're gonna we're gonna audit data centers but as over seeing the total destruction of Texas and that's I don't yeah I'm not saying he's evil he's just weak but yeah it doesn't get the credit he deserves

for that but it'll be obvious in the next ten years but New York I mean so we'll see I mean I don't know and I don't know what's gonna happen in Texas I mean you have this Project Stargate project in Abelene Texas arguably the largest data center built out in the world in Project Stargate one that President Trump has championed so I wonder if there's going to be any pushback from his the

“AI task force you know if anyone speaks out against that in the state of Texas but New York”

and I don't know how much of this is you know how how how much of this will continue and will New York be like the state that says we're we're done with data centers all together sorry go go someplace else what will that look like and I don't know and I don't know if this will be rollback pending some hey we now feel that they're self-sufficient the power is self-sufficient that they don't need to rely on us at all for energy for water and they figured out the diesel

generation backup so that's not spilling off particulates and all of these other things and now we can welcome them back to the state you know and then you have governments you have local governments like in the state of Georgia of course who are going after and using imminent domain to seize land just like you would to build a new highway sees people's homes in order to build AI data centers because it's a as President Trump has part of these executive orders I mean

he he he he was explicit that this is a national security issue for the United States of America so this is another big piece of this and I don't think enough people are talking about what the Trump administration just did it even just a few weeks ago with the FCC ruling I don't know for are you familiar with the FCC ruling totally ignorant as usual and I'm also confused just why this is a national security issue I don't even know what it means I mean China China

China China China China but okay yeah I was at a national security issue what are you talking about do you have any clue so I mean I guess if you look at from a military perspective to make sure that we have the AI infrastructure that can deal with the future of modern warfare whether it's drone capabilities robotics on the battlefield it all comes back to war of course so to make sure that Palantir you know Palantir using AWS it's not really public but they really use a lot of

Amazon web services as the back end of Palantir with their own sort of proprietary front end of all of this then you're building out all of these these new government data centers that Amazon is helping build and what's interesting about these data centers you that Amazon is building for the military or for the Pentagon or the CIA is you've got like eight layers of security in these facilities so that even a president Trump wanted to go through them he has to go through

like eight layers of like you know bioscanning and I don't know it's like the movies where you walk through a corridor and one door opens and scans arrivals and gets smart yeah yeah so like eight layers of this stuff in these facilities and Amazon builds this for the CIA and others and

as they get to a certain level of the build out they basically hand the keys over to the guys

on the inside and they say we'll take it from here and so the Amazon's like okay we built you know

learned if there's like some sort of massive power outage or something like that they have to

“come back in but otherwise it's like the CIA then runs these facilities and by the way some”

of these facilities are being built kind of in plain sight but inside of other facilities like veterans affairs buildings so you think oh that's a veterans affairs building but inside is a hidden is a hidden operations data center inside of some of these facilities that I've learned as well which is interesting so a lot of these government buildings you think on the outside or one thing an IRS building but on the inside is a hidden is a hidden data center for for monitoring its

citizens so national security the idea that we don't want China to have this AI layer for all

of the data collection that we're doing in the United States whether it's flock safety I know that's

the most like kind of public facing one right now but that data goes somewhere and it goes through AWS it goes through Amazon web services the same way that Palantir does and all of it and

“it needs to be stored somewhere so it needs to be stored in these massive facilities whether it's”

Nevada and other places and all of the data that's being collected on Americans from you know phone calls to email everything that they're they're using to scan and and track us at this moment and so they don't want China involved in this of course and that's the outwardly facing you know enemy we don't want to use we don't want any of their models their AI models we want to use our own models that are helped in inside the United States and funded by the United

States government or in part with large grants and so forth so that's like the national security piece of this so about about a week ago this is a story that really didn't get much attention but it's huge and it's going to it's going to further bring more AI build out an infrastructure

into the United States in a huge way and that is the FCC's ruling on hardware basically the components

“for robotics cannot be built outside of the United States so 65% of the component parts in your”

humanoid robots or robotics need to be built within the United States now well Elon Musk I mean in Tesla an optimist like that's a huge they're going to shift dramatically so that now instead of the most of it being built in China most of it will need to be built in the United States the actuators fingers for robot all of that stuff needs to now be built in the United States 65% of it so that's another big piece of this war right now over AI between China that's

going to increase though to over 80% by the year 2030 so that ruling is like hey get your stuff figured out now at 65% because it's going to go up to 80% so all of this stuff will be built in the United States or at least presumably it'll be built in the United States and then this AI layer inside the United States is just going to grow so speaking of sources and Amazon they're they're built out they're sold out this blew me away they're sold out for eight like if I wanted to like

redact it news my little crappy show like if I wanted to build an AI data center and or even just use a part of compute like with Amazon web services for my show or something or you wanted to do it with with with with the Tucker Carlson network or something Amazon has sold out through 2030 for capacity like we want a portion of this data center to be devoted to whatever sorry we're sold out for through 2030 and we don't have enough capacity now and we have projected to be building out

thousands of additional data centers in the next few years so when I said at the beginning we're not even at the beginning of this and people are already talking about a bubble and this no and there's so many other pieces to this I'm sorry I'm just kind of rambling here but all these ideas kind of fly into my head about how crazy this is because there's so many pieces of this you have the robotics piece of this you have the information layer then you have like the factory piece of this

then you have the efficiency piece of this inside of these factories then you have just the actual infrastructure to build out all of these different data centers and then all of the companies surrounding those build outs like this blew me away I don't know if you've heard of United Rentals if you're heard of this company no it's just one example so when you think about Amazon goes in and builds a new data center well or meta or Google or whoever they hire they don't like come in there and

like change the community and like thousands of people get jobs like people come in for like about 18 months at most and they leave so it's kind of like the gold rush or like you know saying elbows in Colorado ghost towns you know they come in they do what they need in the belief so they

of those companies right so and they're they've got now sites and one thousand different locations so

hey United Rentals we're building out a data center in Reno do you have an location nearby you can bring earth figures movers generators backup generators all that yep we got you down and so then they'll come in bring all that equipment build it out and then it leaves that's just like one piece of the puzzle then you've got like the porta potty's company like you've got so many pieces of this this build out that's happening and so people like well it creates jobs temporarily and a lot of

those people come in for every job they're not like creating new jobs every time right they're just they just go to a location and they go to the next location so not creating new jobs and these data

centers really only employ at the most around maybe 50 people and even that number is dwindling

so sorry there's just so many pieces of this that it's it's like there's and there's just like a lack of information out there about it and it's just I just find it's just so fascinating and frustrating and terrifying all at the same time and maybe also a little bit silly I mean this is happening so

“fast and as you've pointed out it's so complex and but it's also so expensive that you have to”

ask like well what is this I mean it's an effort obviously to snap the control grid into place and you know eliminate descent got it it's an effort to stay on par with China got it but it's also an investment opportunity for a lot of people and it's the last hope of states like California which have been completely hollowed out I mean the tax-based in California is like disappearing and so their hope is that AI is going to hit the zag going to be incredibly profitable and they'll

be able to keep their welfare state afloat is this a good bet from a business perspective or is it a bubble and if it's the former how exactly does it make money I don't understand that part of it where's there this is one of the yeah no this is a great question and so when people say we're in an AI bubble they don't know what they're talking about I believe right um when Mark Cuban says you know we're we're building out so many of these data centers and we don't need them

“and they're going to be turned into pickleball courts I believe he doesn't know what he's talking”

about I'd add that off from from every source I've spoken to we're no we're not even at the beginning of this and the demand for compute is off the charts from different companies so I don't know what he's talking about like these are going to be converted to pickleball courts um I think of anything my theory my theory is that these are going to be turned eventually we don't need them these because they're cement and steel these are going to be turned into for profit prisons that's

just my theory just throwing it out there um they're out in the middle of nowhere they'll be converted and we need them badly of course the Trump administration loves the for profit prison system so I just think that that's perfect transition not pickleball courts but anyway so the the so right now we're at the beginning of this and I was going through earnings reports trying to find over the past few weeks the the reason I say we're at the beginning of this because I have not

seen yet from companies on their earnings reports where they have pointed to the AI build out in their factories equaling a percentage of revenue to answer your question there's very few of them

“right now but I believe that that wave is coming so I think and I'm not being hyperbolic about it I really”

believe that the wave is going to end that will increase the demand 100 times there are a few companies that have now said in some earnings in small measure their AI build out has increased revenue so for I'll give you an example there's like an outdoor furniture company and I was going through their reports and they were explaining that with their AI layer that they built in they were able to sort of I don't know bunch furniture together in a certain way that was more aesthetically pleasing

at their stores I don't know exactly and they were able to increase revenue it also increase the proficiency of their sales associates so it didn't cost jobs it actually increased their sales

associates proficiency by like 82 percent they claim leading to about a 15 percent increase in revenue

might have the numbers slightly different but you get the point right like they've been doing something the same way for 30 years and then suddenly they add in this like AI efficiency layer and suddenly they've increased their revenue by 15 percent without they didn't hire anybody new they didn't build new factory or new warehouse they just like bunched furniture together in a certain way that like increased something another company I was looking at their earnings they claimed that

with the scrap metal that they were able to save like they put in an AI efficiency layer in their

that would usually lead to about $129 million in wasted scrap but by putting in this AI efficiency

layer they were able to save almost all of that like saving hundreds of millions of dollars in non-having like wasted scrap metal so these are like small little anecdotes from like a few companies that have maybe shown some initiative with AI and so if if we see huge increases inefficiency and revenue aim over like you know there's no bubble you know like with the the dot com bubble there are people building like fake websites you know what they didn't have anything

there was like nothing there it was like fake and there were so many greedy people who were building all these fake websites I remember well like pets dot com you know all these whatever

and it was all just fake and it was all greedy people and so I don't know I mean I I'm just

gonna say I don't know I don't know if like this is all greed or if these companies who've been doing something a certain way for 50 years in their warehouse suddenly they add in like this AI efficiency layer and their revenue increases by 20% maybe they don't fire anybody maybe they actually hire more people I don't know exactly so anyone who says they know is added I just I don't maybe Elon knows he seems to know I just but I yeah I of and I'm the last person who

would know I'm happy to admit that but whenever I see lemon like behavior I suspect the cliff is near you know whenever you know every midwit you run across is saying the same thing about the future I generally bet that's not what the future's gonna look like but you know maybe I'm the midwit but I have noticed all of a sudden when the guy from Shark Tank is like talking about

“stuff he doesn't understand the future is data center so I'm like I think the future is probably”

not data centers but you know who knows maybe I'm just reactionary no okay I say this I think

I think the future is human connection so I think one of the I'm always a glass half full kind of

person I think one of the benefits of this despite all of its downsides is the human interaction layer and you're already seeing it actually restaurants are reporting that like young people are coming in they're not drinking number one they don't they don't drink alcohol and they're coming in they're bringing like a stack of like playing cards and they're just hanging out all night like or board game they're bringing scrabble you know and they don't bring their phones at all and they just come in

and are together and I think there's gonna be an insatiable desire for human interaction with this

“explosion of AI call it slop call it fakeery whatever you want to call it I think there's gonna be a”

really an insatiable desire for human connection and human interaction and human content you know people to be able to say I'd rather watch Tucker's show because it's real human beings having a conversation than the fake AI generated garbage that you know maybe Hollywood is putting out so yeah I think that's one maybe benefit yeah I said among young people you're seeing this shift and I hope that that's the case I don't I don't know I'm just more troubled about how this is

going to affect young people than anything I see my kids my son just turned 16 and you know and and he's going to go into the trades because so many of these jobs are just being taken by AI and they will be and if you don't think that that's the case you're fooling yourself yes I know all these wall street types the shark tank types are like this can create way more jobs and we don't know maybe they're right and maybe there will be so many jobs created to

help the AI efficiency layer or help the robots you know help the robots and all of this piece of it

“I don't know that there's any evidence that that's true I think most of the the jobs that you can”

name you can title yourself I'm an accountant I'm a pilot I'm this I'm that are going to be replaced by AI I mean at what point soon will FedEx all of their aircraft be run by AI instead of pilots or maybe because of a pilot union there'll be one pilot on board just to oversee the AI but certainly won't be two certainly won't be three so if you're thinking about becoming a pilot like when my son was he's kind of like step back from that because like there's that's going to

you're not going to make any money on that and you're not going to be able to those jobs are going to disappear you're already seeing in the military it's already happening so going into the trades I'm just concerned with my kids you know like so my son going in electrical engineering and learning

it's a scary time I'm just really worried about the cognitive offload to for children

“yeah I brought up the I don't know if you remember that study back in last like 2011 that Google”

the Google effect study and you know it was the idea how much are we outsourcing search and other things to Google instead of doing it ourselves and the sort of idea of search offload or cognitive offload and I'm sure you do it I know I do it it's like oh if I know I can just search for it and find it then I don't need to store it up here yes you know it's like the Socrates it's like what Socrates and Plato Socrates being worried about we won't be able to remember things because

we're not you know we're going to write everything down you know and the only reason we know that

is because Plato wrote it down but anyway so that that was the fear on the Google effect side

now it's really transitioned to something else entirely with AI beyond just oh I don't need to remember it because I can search for it later and Google will just like surface that one page but even with that you had to go and do the research yourself you had to click on the link you had to read the book you had to synthesize the information you had to organize your thoughts you had to reason you had to write it down so I can just think about college for myself just

“having to get like five or six books on the topic uh I remember writing a whole report on vanilla”

in Latin America and I had to go to the special library at the University of Pittsburgh's campus that

you had to go under like lock and key because these were old rare books from like 150 years ago and

had to sit in that library I couldn't take them out because they were rare and I had to do all of this research on vanilla and in all of this in Latin America and after reading these like four five books I had to write a hideous synthesize my thoughts I had to organize my thoughts which I'm not very good at it's something I've struggled with my whole life but I've gotten better at it because I've been forced to do it to write essays to write to reason to think to put all of these things down

in an argument or a narrative become a better writer just by writing over over the years and then present my paper and then you know get a C on the paper it's pretty normal for me or get a B but now kids are just outsourcing that fully it's the cognitive offload where they're saying hey I'm in eighth grade so write me write me a paper as if an eighth grader wrote it about the fall of the Roman Empire and don't make it sound like AI so no amount of research forget the google effect

now it's I'm gonna you're gonna do all the research for me you're gonna synthesize everything you're gonna organize everything and then you're gonna present it and I'm gonna turn it in and so what these studies have found recently is that kids are actually doing really well with their projects with using AI and they're turning in like great work but then when they're tested on it they fail because they they have no memory of having done any of the work they didn't sit in

the library and research vanilla all afternoon drinking you know big gulps they they just offloaded all of that and so they're not remembering anything and being tested on it they can't recall anything so I'm just I'm really really worried about you know that part of it the and what's gonna happen to to my kids our kids going forward in our ability to have conversations to reason to think to have debates to present arguments to support your arguments

organize your thoughts that's where I'm that's the real human piece of all of this well that's kind of the question is what's what's the purpose I mean does the machine

“serve the person or the person serve the machine I think you could make a strong case”

I think most people would make the case that for all the benefits of the internet over the last 30 years it's been a net loss for humanity we don't live in a more peaceful world we don't live in a more stable world and we don't live in a smarter world a wiser world we don't and probably many reasons for that but the internet hasn't achieved its core promises peace stability knowledge wisdom that didn't work so knowing that

why would you triple down on the effect with AI and of course you wouldn't if the goal was to serve people and you really do detect when you listen to technology speak that their orientation is totally different like it it's like we have an obligation to serve technology no one ever explains why I guess because it's a god maybe the only god

dumber or more suicidal children or whatever the result kind of inevitably will be

“that's the price you pay to serve the machine and it's like that seems backward to me”

it absolutely does and I you know it's just sitting you're thinking as you're saying that like we had a net positive with the internet and it's hard it's hard to argue that we have in any appreciable way we're sitting in a third world war right now

think about how the internet moves markets and creates incredible anxiety

you hear this sort of like palpable feeling of anxiety across the United States I think largely you could blame that on the internet when people jump on the x or jump on social media and they're fed these dopamine hits of 15 second videos and they're just like why did I do that to myself you feel sort of transported I you know just getting sucked into you know voyeuristic content with people getting arrested or whatever it is it just it makes you feel

awful and I don't think that there's you have influencers on escalators like filming themselves

“and like what this is what we want like you know this that's why I'm encouraged that you know”

younger people are saying I don't want to smartphone anymore the internet and smartphones I think

you could combine them and then add in this like AI layer on top of it and you're just constantly online so I don't know I think you're going to see maybe you're going to start to see more honest communities pop up you know you're going to start to see like a pushback sort of internet free zones you know do not bring your phones in here I don't know how I don't know how big those things will be and I don't know what kind of pushback will have from from people who've gone through

it will we have sort of a moment where we all say enough is enough we don't want this anymore there are the arguments well maybe we shouldn't be connected in such a way to these these AI

models that are coming from China that are coming from the United States that are coming from open AI

anthropic et cetera get open source models that you can then store like on your own compute in your own house that is so you have like all of the wisdom self contained and I know they're like some libertarian friends of mine who believe that that's the way to go is like you have you have all of this compute sort of living I don't want to say like Hillary Clinton's style like on your own servers in your house but you're not relying on China you're not relying on the government you're

“not relying on these companies you're relying on yourself and if you want to do some deeper research”

on a project you have access to it because it lives on your own server in your house disconnected from those people I don't know I don't have that without getting too far field however I mean I think one of the biggest things that's happened in technology in recent memory was the hacking of cold wallets and the theft of Bitcoin from cold wallets and the promise of a cold wallet was it was disconnected from the internet it was it was holy yours no one could put a finger on it

other than you and that was the assurance that your Bitcoin was actually yours and to so to see that get hacked somehow suggest that anything with an electrical impulse is not really under your control well we even saw the story wasn't three weeks ago about the AI model that was offline it was not even connected to the internet and managed to somehow connect and get all and hack jump online to to hack and then jump back offline right and so yeah and then add in the robotics layer to this

on top of it all right so the humanoid the the humanoid robot piece of this where you know you're going to have this you're going to have this in warfare you're going to have humanoid robots I mean it straight it's it literally is straight out of Terminator yeah um you know this is what's coming um and who can stop it is there going to be some sort of a kill switch and the ability to turn this stuff off I don't think so so I don't know we're going to build compounds with

you know corrugated you know steel walls and and turrets on our houses now to protect us against the the coming AI robot invasion but we're seeing it on the battlefield already and we already know that the US military is years ahead on this planning for where this is going so I don't know it's it to me it's this is the greatest bizarre and biggest transformation in human history that we're watching right now unfold before us yeah yeah I mean I paid to say it a lot of flawed people with

true ideas out there but Ted Kazinski did call this 30 years ago um and because he was crazy

he was on something I would say Claymore's thank you for that really informed and kind of amazing rundown of where we're going um I'm grateful my pleasure it's scary let's hang out and have a human human conversation without AI I can't wait great to see you thanks thanks mate