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The growing anger over the AI industry’s obsession with building massive and resource-intensive data centers across the country is as palpable than ever.
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center highlighted widespread public concern over the facilities’ environmental harms, effects on home energy costs, and the quality of life of nearby residents.
These concerns do seem justified. Experts have found that data centers can spike local electricity prices, generate copious amounts of greenhouse gases, and place a major strain on freshwater resources.
Now, a self-described content creator and digital artist named Will Hollingsworth who spoke up during a city council meeting in Ravenna, Ohio — a small town of 11,000 residents — is turning heads with his passionate argument against data centers. The council’s chambers became overwhelmed with a crowd of almost 100 people during the April 10 meeting, which hosted a debate over a proposed 12-month moratorium on data center construction in the area inspired by a nearby community’s own moratorium.
Hollingsworth’s four-minute speech perfectly summarizes why the backlash is starting to reach a tipping point, as more politicians are calling for a moratorium on new construction.
“These facilities can use millions of gallons of water per day,” he said, as seen in a video that went viral over the weekend. “We are being asked to drain our reservoirs so a chatbot can write a poem or so our sheriff can generate a picture of himself standing next to Bigfoot,” he added, picking up laughter in the room.
Hollingsworth said that he used to rely on AI at his job overseeing video content production at a mattress company, making his point of view particularly noteworthy. He explained that he used to feed AI image generating app Midjourney “prompts to create the perfect commercial, training the very machine that would eventually replace me as three months later they would lay me off.”
Now he’s become a foe of the tech, he said.
“They want us to trust a trillion dollar industry that tells us with a straight face that they can suck five million gallons of water out of our ground a day,” Hollingsworth argued, to “use it as a liquid heat sink, and return it to our rivers without a single consequence.”
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