{"id":5460,"date":"2026-04-15T00:35:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T00:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/5460\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T00:35:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T00:35:01","slug":"we-are-being-asked-to-drain-our-reservoirs-so-a-sheriff-can-generate-a-picture-with-bigfoot-an-ex-programmers-brutal-ai-data-center-warning-is-going-viral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/5460\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We are being asked to drain our reservoirs so a sheriff can generate a picture with Bigfoot\u2019: an ex-programmer\u2019s brutal AI data center warning is going viral"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\" Mr Hollingsworth speaking at a city council planning meeting for the city of Ravenna, in Ohio. \" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/7504f9c30599b0d1f60b6f7e65d3b7d1.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Credit: Reddit<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A former programmer\u2019s anti-data-center speech is going viral because it cuts through AI hype and focuses on local costs<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ohio has become a hotspot for backlash over data centers, with concerns over power, water, land use, and tax breaks<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The bigger question is whether communities are being asked to sacrifice too much for too little in return<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It\u2019s not every day that a city council planning meeting goes viral, but a recent session in Ravenna, Ohio, has done exactly that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The reason is a speech by ex-programmer, Mr. Hollingsworth, who delivers one of the cleanest and most articulate arguments yet against the construction of a massive <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/ai\/articles\/ai-growth-creating-more-heat-210500004.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:AI data center;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;AI data center&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI data center<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The clip has racked up 49 thousand likes on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/interestingasfuck\/comments\/1sj052s\/a_wellarticulated_argument_against_a_new_data\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Reddit,;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Reddit,&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Reddit,<\/a> with one user commenting, \u201cGod Damn that was good. Seriously this should be used as a script in every county these corporations are hustling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Common arguments against AI<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Most of the common arguments against AI concern the dangers presented by chatbots from hallucinations that provide incorrect answers or the psychological dangers of believing the sycophantic leanings that most chatbots have.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Hollingsworth\u2019s objection was about the more physical needs of AI \u2014 the infrastructure and the potential damage it does to the environment. He\u2019s talking about land, water, power, tax breaks, and how few jobs a giant data center may actually offer to the local economy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWe are being asked to drain our reservoirs so a chatbot can write a poem, or so a sheriff can generate a picture of himself standing next to Bigfoot\u201d, Hollingsworth says. It\u2019s a deliberately absurd image, and that\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Hollingsworth starts his talk by challenging the idea that modern-day data centers can operate as a \u2018closed loop\u2019 system, which doesn&#8217;t waste water. \u2018Closed loop\u2019 uses circulating coolant through sealed systems, eliminating the need for constant water replenishment. Hollingsworth is skeptical that the forever chemicals produced in the cooling process won\u2019t eventually find their way back into the water table, no matter how many studies show otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>A major battleground<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He goes on to tackle the myth that data centers bring jobs, and to mention how excessive the power demands will be, and the quotes keep coming throughout:<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThey 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, use it as a liquid heat sink and return it to our rivers without a single consequence\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ohio is becoming a major battleground over AI infrastructure, with communities questioning whether the trade-offs are worth it. The push back feels less reactionary from somebody like Hollingsworth because of his credibility as an ex-programmer and working with AI models in the past. He frequently says that he is not against new technology or AI in particular, but the costs required for it to run come at a price, and it\u2019s one that the city and its residents will end up paying if the planning permission is given the go-ahead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The progress of AI often feels inevitable and like it is happening without our consent. It might feel like something that lives in the cloud, but speeches like this are a reminder that AI runs on very real resources. If a project consumes huge amounts of local resources and reshapes the community, but only creates very limited long-term work, then the usual argument for agreeing to data centers, that \u201cyou\u2019ll be left behind unless you agree\u201d, starts to lose a lot of its power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,39,4807,4806],"class_list":{"0":"post-5460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ai","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-data-centers","11":"tag-ex-programmer","12":"tag-hollingsworth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}