Altman and Musk would have you believe AI is incorporeal—an ethereal flow of ones and zeros that coalesces into a cool female voice. But in reality, the AI “boom” is a parched and raging fire. An inferno. Just as the system of capital which produced it, their version of AI would destroy that which gives life—water, land, time—to produce nothing but profit for a very few.
In the U.S, there are currently 5000 of these infernos, called data centers. This number is supposed to double in five years, for no other reason than to make billionaires into trillionaires. In 2023, U.S. data centers directly consumed 17 billion gallons of water. Conservative estimates double this number by 2028. In 2024, datacenters accounted for 4% of the total electricity consumption in the US. In five years, if the con works, over 10% percent of us electricity consumption will be used for AI “inference”, a.k.a. for making pictures of Shrek with boobs and providing technological platforms for racist policing, surveillance, and immigration enforcement.
On December 10, members of the Data Center Action Coalition will visit Alienated Majesty in ATX to discuss the fight against datacenter construction in San Marcos. They will discuss the tactics that have made them successful so far as well as ongoing strategies and opportunities to mobilize. This fight is part of a growing national movement. All over the country, people are fighting datacenter construction and winning. We don’t want the future they are forcing on us. The fight requires us to create collective futures where life is for living instead of producing value.
