If you think there isn’t already enough reason to hate big corporations, here’s yet another one to add to the list. While AI has been hyped up as the “next revolution” by wealthy investors and tech moguls, it’s just as easy to see the massive issues and problems that come with it. One of the biggest problems is the construction of sprawling data centers. Unlike regular buildings, these centers are like greedy, gluttonous beasts that devour electricity and water nonstop. For the people living in Indiana, the latest nightmare is the massive data center Amazon is building. Beyond the endless construction noise, neighborhoods are now raising alarms about their drinking water.
The facility is consuming gallons upon gallons of water every single day to cool the hundreds of thousands of AI chips Amazon is running to churn out more AI slop to flood the market. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the damage. Residents are already reporting nearby bodies of water drying up. Some even say their tap water has started to taste strange. On top of that, complaints have spread about air pollution coming from the center, not to mention light pollution at night. And beyond the environmental toll, people are also frustrated over rising electricity bills, which they say are connected to the facility’s massive energy demands.
With the ongoing AI arms race, the government seems far more eager to help big corporations build these massive environment-wrecking data centers than to protect citizens. Instead of making Amazon and companies like it pay for the real costs, the government effectively pushes those bills onto regular people. Locals already feel defeated, convinced that politicians will always side with corporations like Amazon over them.
Online reaction has been intense. Many internet users expressed anger and frustration, pointing out that they disliked AI from the beginning and now see it as an even greater problem because of the environmental destruction tied to data centers. “Wow don’t the people who live here get a say?!” one user wrote.
Others, however, showed little sympathy, turning the discussion political and blaming Indiana voters for supporting Trump, which they argued indirectly enabled Amazon and other corporations to dominate the state. Still others criticized the state government for failing to pass strong laws to protect citizens and the environment. One redditor summed it up by saying, “There is a reason a lot of data centers are being built in Indiana. We have water, weak environmental laws, low voter involvement, and politicians don’t give AF.”
