Big Technology Podcast
00:34:45 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:34:45] S1: So That's why I asked. [00:34:47] S0: Let's see if I'm right or not. I'm gonna try to manifest it. Manifest it. Alright. [00:34:52] S1: What Do it for Alex. [00:34:53] S0: One last thing before [00:34:53] S1: Alex and his travel schedule. He's gonna be in New York ready Yes. Right by the stock exchange, ready to go. [00:35:00] S0: I don't wanna have to bring this seat anywhere else. Okay? It's a big chair. [00:35:05] S1: You need to get the... Get a chair like that back at home. That thing, it's regal. You said royal regal. It brings a different feel. [00:35:13] S0: Describe it? [00:35:13] S1: It's a [00:35:14] S0: I think you need to describe it for audio. [00:35:16] S1: It's a kind of reddish tan. Again, looks like it very well could have been nicked as they say from Buckingham Palace. There's kind of those two wings on the side that stick out. A chair you would smoke a cigar on, smoke a pipe on, that you would sign a contract colonizing parts of India back in the eighteen hundreds as Lord Mountbatten. That is definitely a chair that did some colonialism at some point to me. [00:35:55] S0: Well, I can tell you I I will be doing doing none of these things. [00:35:58] S1: So No cigars or colonialism abilities. Today. Not tonight, at least.
00:35:58 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:35:58] S1: So No cigars or colonialism abilities. Today. Not tonight, at least. [00:36:04] S0: I have other things to do. Alright. Before we go to break, I just wanna get your perspective on whether you think that... We talk a lot about the comms problem that the AI industry has, and this is obviously... All these problems right now are potentially a manifestation of that problem or downstream of the problem. Do you think that the AI industry can turn this around? And then saying it's very important to ask because we already have some news from open AI saying that it will avoid NDAs when it negotiates data center deals. It's going to say that residents will not pay for electricity to power those projects. It's going to say it's going to turn these things instead it's going to turn them down during peak electricity hours. And I wonder if we'll see an about face because up until now, you know, though the AI industry has said that everything's above board, clearly, they they know that there's work to be done, because they're coming out with these reforms. And, you know, you look at places like Louisiana, there was this New York Times story from July that I think we talked about, where like data centers have started just appearing in local communities, that they're being, you know, they've been placed under secret code names, and they just show up. And that that may or or may not... You know, well, that's clearly not sustainable. So do you think there's a way for them to turn it around? And if so, how?
00:37:22 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:37:22] S1: It's... What do we... What are we calling the AI industry here? Is that Google meta OpenAI Anthropic? Are we calling it... Like, what are you referring to as AI in NVIDIA as well? Anyone [00:37:39] S0: with a stake in data centers being AI data centers being How about that? Okay. So it include the neo clouds, but we know who really is, you know, who drives the narrative here. It's the OpenAI, it's the Anthropic, it's Jensen, it's Mark Zuckerberg. [00:37:53] S1: I think there's an opportunity for some number of politicians, some number of kind of like un... Untarnished voices and faces and people to actually start to kind of assert themselves as the face of the AI industry. Again, we we we had joked in the past, like Jensen could be the good guy of AI. Like, Dario and Sam and Jensen and Elon and all will never be the good guy in the face of the American people for the AI industry. I think maybe there is room for both politicians and other leaders to kind of step up and fill that void and gap. But I I don't think the... For how brutal the effort of trying to actually be... You know, like, not care about what anyone thought over the last couple of years, I don't think you're just gonna walk back from that that easily. Do you think they suddenly friendly Sam touring America, going to farms and stuff like that and doing one of those tours they used to do back in the nineties? Do you think he might do that?
00:37:53 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:37:53] S1: I think there's an opportunity for some number of politicians, some number of kind of like un... Untarnished voices and faces and people to actually start to kind of assert themselves as the face of the AI industry. Again, we we we had joked in the past, like Jensen could be the good guy of AI. Like, Dario and Sam and Jensen and Elon and all will never be the good guy in the face of the American people for the AI industry. I think maybe there is room for both politicians and other leaders to kind of step up and fill that void and gap. But I I don't think the... For how brutal the effort of trying to actually be... You know, like, not care about what anyone thought over the last couple of years, I don't think you're just gonna walk back from that that easily. Do you think they suddenly friendly Sam touring America, going to farms and stuff like that and doing one of those tours they used to do back in the nineties? Do you think he might do that? [00:39:04] S0: It's hard. I mean, because data centers are ugly. Ultimately, right? You could put a mural on them. They don't grace the landscape the same way farmland does. So it's gonna be [00:39:17] S1: tough. Wait, did you hear there's a... I think it was in France somewhere, like a beautiful data center that they tried building and like tried to like, and there's still a lot of community backlash on it.
00:39:17 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:39:17] S1: tough. Wait, did you hear there's a... I think it was in France somewhere, like a beautiful data center that they tried building and like tried to like, and there's still a lot of community backlash on it. [00:39:31] S0: You know, it's happened in different places. I think... Okay. You know, speaking of manifesting, I think the AI industry should follow this hot take that I've had for a while. Go. And it doesn't seem to be picking up any steam. No pun intended because what I'm about to say involves that. I think that the AI industry should turn the data center... The middle of these data centers into spots and have all the heat that the chips generate used to power hot tubs, steam rooms, saunas, and maybe they could put a cold plunge in there. And I think given the trends that we're seeing right now, the wellness trends that we're seeing, if if I'm open AI, and I say, listen up, Ohio, I'm bringing a data center to your community, it's gonna be somewhat ugly, but I'm giving anybody within a 25 mile radius, access to chat GP spa. That doesn't work. The the GPT spa, then then I think that will improve the popularity.
00:40:40 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:40:40] S1: Alright. So one thing I will note, this French data center, I just looked it up. It was TBPN had shared it, but it was a prank and not real. So we'll already retract that one about anything in France and beautiful data centers. But But in terms of Alex's beautiful data centers spa combination, it is interesting. Like, you know, don't go to Iceland. Go next door and get into... Maybe they carve out and build these kind of lagoons that are getting heated. But also, as we're saying it, being that close to that mass generator of power and saying that that'll heat up the water that you're gonna put your body in feels a little off to the point that even your amazingly named GPT spa, which obviously would draw in consumers from every walk of life. I think I'm starting to feel a little more ick around this. [00:41:42] S0: I get it, but listen, it's not nuclear. Okay? It's not like you have this radioactive waste. It's just heat coming in because these chips run hot. So I don't think that this is like you're gonna be in the byproduct of some industrial process. There's natural heat. There's gotta be a way to Harness that heat. To funnel it into to... I promise you, if they put a data center spa down the block for me, I'd be there all the time, especially if it was free. And you know what? There's a cut... There's there's something that's severely lacking in society today, which is common places for people to get together and bond socially. [00:42:19] S1: Loneliness epidemic. This [00:42:20] S0: could solve loneliness, and we need to be more well. And this could solve