Commentary: We Hate Technology. Please Like and Share

There is something wonderfully modern about sitting on the couch with a smartphone, opening Facebook and typing a complaint about data centers.

Think about the journey that complaint takes.

You tap the screen. The phone sends the message through Wi-Fi or a cellular network. Computers process it. Facebook’s algorithms decide where to put it. Servers store it. More computers deliver it to people who will agree with you, disagree with you, or somehow turn the conversation into an argument about national politics.

All in a matter of seconds.

And the comment might be:

“We don’t need all these data centers.”

There is some humor in that.

But before anyone gets angry, the Royal Examiner is standing right there with you.

We are an online newspaper. We publish stories on computers, store photographs on servers, send email and share articles on social media. You read us on phones, tablets and computers.

We’re all part of a digital world that is remarkably easy to use and remarkably easy to forget has a physical footprint.

The cloud, unfortunately, is not a cloud.

It has an address.

Recognizing that doesn’t mean we have to volunteer our hometown to become that address.

We Like Technology Best When We Can’t See It

Most of us rarely think about what happens after we tap a screen.

Facebook opens.

A movie streams.

Google answers.

Our doorbell sends video to a phone while we’re miles from home.

We take 37 photographs of the grandkids because nobody has to pay to develop film anymore, and those pictures remain available years later.

We save documents online. We bank online. We read the newspaper online.

It all feels almost weightless.

Except there is no magic involved.

There are computers.

Lots and lots of computers.

They require buildings, electricity, cooling systems, fiber connections, and other infrastructure. They occupy real land in real communities.

Then somebody proposes putting that infrastructure near us.

Suddenly we discover we liked the cloud better when we thought it floated over Kansas.

That’s funny.

It is not, however, an argument that every community should welcome a data center.

Using the internet doesn’t mean we surrender our right to decide what kind of development belongs in our community.

Driving a car doesn’t require you to support a six-lane highway through your backyard.

Using electricity doesn’t mean you must welcome a transmission line across your property.

And using Facebook doesn’t mean you have to support a data center proposed down the road.

Those are separate questions.

A Land-Use Decision Is Not Hypocrisy

Communities considering data centers have serious questions to answer.

How much electricity will a project require?

What additional electrical infrastructure will it require?

What about noise, water use, roads, nearby homes, and the appearance of the landscape?

What happens to surrounding property?

What tax revenue will the locality actually receive?

How many permanent jobs will be created?

What does the community gain, and what does it give up?

Those aren’t anti-technology questions.

They’re land-use questions.

A community can look at those answers and decide the trade isn’t worth it.

There is nothing hypocritical about that.

The hypocrisy — and most of us are guilty of some version of it — comes when we pretend our digital lives have no physical consequences at all.

Every Facebook post, streamed movie, cloud photograph, and internet search ultimately depends on equipment somewhere.

We should understand that.

We don’t have to volunteer our hometown to host it.

And Then Somebody Mentions AI

Artificial intelligence produces its own version of the same contradiction.

If you really want to wake up a Facebook comments section, use an AI-generated illustration.

Someone will object.

Sometimes that objection is entirely justified.

News organizations should be especially careful about synthetic images. If an AI-generated illustration looks like a photograph of a real event, readers could reasonably believe they’re seeing something that actually happened.

That’s a problem.

There are also legitimate questions about copyright, accuracy, energy consumption, and what artificial intelligence means for photographers, illustrators, writers, and other creative professions.

Those discussions should happen.

But there is still something amusing about using a smartphone to post on an algorithm-driven social network, as if technology has gone too far.

That horse left the barn, ordered an Uber, and is now asking its phone for directions.

Artificial intelligence isn’t sitting in a laboratory waiting for society to decide whether to let it out.

Many of its forms are already built into products and services we use every day.

Phones process photographs. Email systems identify spam. Software predicts what we’re typing. Search engines sort results. Social networks use algorithms to decide which posts we’re most likely to look at.

You can decide not to use an AI chatbot or image generator.

That’s a perfectly reasonable choice.

But drawing a clean line between a world with artificial intelligence and one without is getting harder.

Welcome To The Digital Hypocrites Club

Maybe the healthiest response is to admit that none of us is completely consistent about technology.

We want better cell service.

Just don’t put the tower where we can see it.

We want reliable electricity.

Please don’t put the transmission lines nearby.

We want packages delivered tomorrow.

Why are there so many delivery trucks?

We want to store thousands of photographs forever.

We’d rather not think about the buildings storing them.

We want instant movies, instant directions, instant banking, instant news and instant communication.

Then we wonder why the infrastructure supporting all that keeps growing.

The Royal Examiner doesn’t get an exemption.

We’re an online newspaper.

Our stories have to live somewhere. Our photographs have to live somewhere. When you click a story on Facebook, an impressive chain of technology gets it from us to you.

We participate in the same digital economy we’re writing about.

That doesn’t mean Royal Examiner needs a data center next door.

And it doesn’t mean Warren County — or any other community — should approve one simply because its residents use the internet.

It means we should be honest about both sides of the equation.

Our digital conveniences have physical costs.

Where to place those costs is a separate decision.

Technology Doesn’t Get A Free Pass

The same principle applies to AI.

Pointing out that someone uses Facebook doesn’t answer that person’s concerns about artificial intelligence.

Pointing out that someone stores photographs in the cloud doesn’t answer concerns about a proposed data center.

“Gotcha, you use technology too” isn’t much of an argument.

But neither is pretending the services we enjoy materialize without infrastructure, electricity, or environmental consequences.

The better discussion lies between those two extremes.

Ask hard questions about data centers.

Ask how much power they require and where that power will come from.

Ask what new infrastructure follows them.

Ask whether the tax revenue is worth the tradeoffs.

Ask whether a proposed location makes sense for the people who already live there.

And ask hard questions about AI.

Ask whether an image is real. Ask how it was made. Ask whether it could mislead someone. Ask whether the technology is being used because it actually improves something or simply because it’s new.

Technology doesn’t deserve automatic acceptance.

It also doesn’t deserve automatic rejection.

It deserves scrutiny.

The Cloud Has Neighbors

Maybe the internet’s strangest achievement is how successfully it has hidden itself from us.

We hold a thin piece of glass in one hand and summon nearly anything we want.

A newspaper.

A movie.

A doctor’s appointment.

A bank account.

A photograph taken 12 years ago.

A live picture of the front porch.

A video of a cat knocking a glass off a table.

Three hours later, somehow, we’re still watching cats.

It feels effortless because almost all the effort happens somewhere else.

But “somewhere else” is a real place.

It has landowners.

It has neighbors.

It has roads and power lines.

It has a planning commission.

Sooner or later, it probably has a public hearing.

That’s where the conversation changes.

Acknowledging that we use the internet doesn’t settle whether a particular data center belongs in a particular community.

It simply makes us a little more honest about the world we’ve created.

So go ahead and question data centers.

Question artificial intelligence.

Question the companies selling both.

Question us, too.

That’s what readers should do.

And if you choose to make that argument in the Royal Examiner Facebook comments from your smartphone, there is still a little irony in it.

We reserve the right to smile.

Just don’t mistake the smile for a rezoning endorsement.