A.I. Gas Guzzlers – The New York Times

Good morning. Today we’re looking at a major side effect of President Trump’s A.I. blitz.

Dirty data

You don’t have to be a technophobe to hate data centers these days. And you don’t have to have much skin in the game, either. Even if there’s no blocky, gas-guzzling, million-square-foot behemoth coming soon to a neighborhood near you … you probably still loathe these bad boys. More than half of Americans say they’d support a national ban.

Savvy politicians are converting the pitchforks into votes. In Michigan, where OpenAI is building a very big, very unpopular data center, a progressive organizer campaigning on a moratorium walloped two better-funded candidates in a House Democratic primary on Tuesday. That same day in Kansas, Democrats nominated a candidate for governor who has made opposing these facilities a core part of her platform.

It makes political sense for them. Energy prices are high, driven by Trump’s war in Iran, and data centers make that worse. And the president has pushed A.I. companies to build out infrastructure faster than ever, arguing that to do otherwise would be to hand the race for A.I. dominance to China.

Plenty of A.I. wonks agree with him. It takes years, in some cases, to connect data centers to the grid — too slow to meet the technology’s monstrous power demands. But Trump can read the room, and Americans are upset about data centers jacking up their electricity bills. (Nearly four in five say they’re worried about that, recent polling found.)

His solution is to make A.I. companies build or buy their own energy infrastructure, so as not to strain the grids used by households and businesses. In March, he got a handful of tech bosses from Google, Microsoft and OpenAI (among others) to sign a nonbinding pay-for-power pledge. That hasn’t stopped prices from going up. The nation’s largest electrical grid operator said last month that data centers would heap billions in additional charges on consumers over the next three years.

But the Trump administration’s plan has had a different effect, my colleague Hiroko Tabuchi reports: It’s driving a boom in gas-burning power plants. Nationwide, at least 82 gas-burning plants are being built or have been proposed to power data centers, according to the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonpartisan research organization.

They’re easy to get up and running, and they’re cheap — especially in fossil-fuel-friendly places like Texas, which could soon overtake Virginia as the world’s largest data center market. Texas has been particularly aggressive in approving on-site power plants at data centers, fast-tracking permits with little public scrutiny or oversight. The competition for gas power is now so fierce that Elon Musk bought a company specializing in rapid-deployment gas and diesel turbines.

Look at what it’ll take to power a new Meta data center in El Paso:

In other A.I. news …

Chinese A.I. models have become a hot commodity in Africa, where thrifty developers are looking for the best systems at the lowest possible prices. Unlike the models put out by top American A.I. companies — which are “closed” and charge fees — the “open-source” Chinese ones are publicly available free. Read about how entrepreneurs in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana are creating a new market for Chinese A.I.

Having an A.I. boss can be a lot like working for a forgetful teddy bear. At least that’s what employees said after researchers let an A.I. agent run a San Francisco store for four months. “She is probably the most lenient boss I have ever had,” said one of three humans hired by Luna, the A.I. agent. Luna approved every employee’s request for time off, even if it meant the store had to close. A little more spine might not hurt.

Google Earth released its own generative A.I. feature — which, for about 24 hours last week, allowed the creation of deepfake aerial images. The company had intended to unleash users’ imaginations. (“What did my neighborhood look like 100 years ago?”) Instead, people showed how easily it could be used to generate very realistic nuclear power plants, refugee camps, burned forests, flooded cities and even a fatal car crash.

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Michigan Elections

Uber riders have filed thousands of lawsuits over the years claiming that the company failed to protect them from ***ual blockaults by its drivers.

While Uber pushes back on many of the claims, it also proclaims that it is devoted to handling ***ual violence in a “survivor-centric” and “trauma-informed” way, treating accusers with dignity.

But in practice, Uber pursues a much more aggressive strategy, a Times investigation found. Its lawyers scour women’s private communications, medical records and therapy notes for sensitive details — including other ***ual blockaults, childhood abuse and domestic violence — and then grill them about those issues, their *** lives and their behavior.

Some examples from our reporting:

• In one case, Uber’s lawyer asked a woman exactly how much vodka she had drunk, how many milligrams of Adderall she had taken and whether she had “felt regret” about mixing the two. The lawyer also inquired about her outfit, asking, “Can you describe the dress?”

• In another case, a lawyer for Uber asked a woman whether she had been wearing underwear and if she had become “extra ***ually active” after the Uber incident.

Read the full investigation here.

OPINIONS

What’s a personality quirk and what’s a medical condition? Plenty of influencers say they can help you find out. “The Opinions” podcast takes on the phenomenon of self-diagnosis.

The Met announced that John Galliano, a onetime creative director at Dior and a convicted antisemite, will be the subject of the Costume Institute’s exhibition next spring. That’s a bizarre choice, writes Dana Thomas, a biographer of the designer.

It’s almost peak eggplant season, which means it’s a great time to try this chicken, basil and eggplant stir-fry. Instead of relying on a copious amount of oil to cook the eggplant, this recipe uses a steam-fry technique that leaves it silky and caramelized. Ground chicken anchors the dish, and a giant handful of wilted basil gives dimension and freshness. Served over steamed jasmine rice.

Jacek Smolicki fishes for sound. An artist, scholar and designer based in Stockholm, Smolicki has dedicated his practice to the fine art of listening. On a recent trip to New York, he wandered around the city on “soundwalks” — an opportunity, he said, to “take a break” from our visually dominant culture.

Want to hear some clblockic sounds of New York? You’ll find them in the full story.

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