A hot potato: There’s been an unusual trend lately: despite increasing resistance to building data centers and AI in general, more people are using the technology than ever before. A company CEO highlighted this blatantly hypocritical behavior, suggesting that critics might not be so vocal if they had to choose between shutting down data centers and shutting down ChatGPT.
“All the people who say they’re against data centers, that they’re against AI in general, are using it,” Verb CEO Cyrus Beschloss said at CNBC’s “Trading the Midterms” event.
He also pointed out that for some people the choice between removing all data centers or losing ChatGPT is not as easy a decision as it seems.
“There will be a real crossroads,” Beschloss said.
The CEO has good reason to point out the flaws in some people’s anti-AI stance. His company Verb is a US data marketplace where people can make money by selling access to their personal data to companies. It connects buyers seeking data for AI training and other purposes with people willing to share it. Users choose what information they want to share and set a minimum selling price.
According to Beschloss, Verb currently has about 25,000 users, but he expects that number to grow to about a million in about a year.
However, it’s hard to argue with what he says. Polls consistently show that more and more Americans are more concerned than excited about AI, while those who believe it will have a negative impact on society far outnumber those who believe the impact will be positive. From massive job losses to human extinction, there are many reasons why people are worried.
Data centers have now become one of the hottest topics in the country. There is outrage at the environmental damage caused by these facilities, the noise they produce and their potential impact on people’s health. Some companies are even trying to convince locals to allow them to build with promises of massive investment, discounted internet or cold hard cash – and most locals still say no.
However, these views seem to contradict the fact that more people than ever are using AI. Back in June, ChatGPT became the fastest app to reach one billion active users per month. It achieved this 3.5 years after launch, surpassing the previous record holder Google Maps, which took about five years after launch to reach the same number.
A survey released the same month also found that nearly half (49%) of U.S. adults now use chatbots, an increase from the 33% who used them two years earlier. This includes around one in four people who use these tools every day.
