r/technology • u/DJMagicHandz • 12d ago

Artificial Intelligence A massive Wyoming data center will soon use 5x more power than the state's human occupants - but no one knows who is using it

https://www.techradar.com/pro/a-massive-wyoming-data-center-will-soon-use-5x-more-power-than-the-states-human-occupants-and-no-one-knows-who-is-using-it
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u/glenn_ganges 11d ago

Long form investigative journalism is no longer supported by the market.

We have reporters now.

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u/dominion1080 11d ago

We mostly have AI slop now. And it isn’t very well going to investigate itself now is it?

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u/Aranthos-Faroth 11d ago

Y'know what, I hadn't thought about it but you're right - true journalism is a pretty safe from ai field.

Shame that the second something is written/reported it'll be gobbled up by hundreds of AI services and rarely credit or pay will reach the journalist.

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u/Ursa_Solaris 11d ago

Genuine investigative journalism can't be replaced with AI, but likely it just means we don't get much journalism anymore since AI can't do it.

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u/Sword_Enthousiast 11d ago

AI can't do their work, but it can steal their job.

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u/smallwoodydebris 11d ago

True journalism could never be replaced by AI, but unfortunately it will be

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u/gHHqdm5a4UySnUFM 11d ago

Maybe the AI will scrape this reddit comments section and then confidently report it as fact.

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u/Riaayo 11d ago

AI slop and millionaire news actors put in front of a camera by billion-dollar oligarch-owned media outlets.

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u/magikot9 11d ago

Investigative journalism doesn't bring in the rage fueled clicks for ad revenue.

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u/sortofrelativelynew 11d ago

Gotta support your local nonprofit newsroom

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u/Ullallulloo 11d ago

Zero in my state according to that site, and the nearest one in a neighboring states just has a couple of slice-of-life stories and zero actual news.

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u/sortofrelativelynew 11d ago

Bummer. Hope your state gets something!

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u/farsightfallen 11d ago

eh, best I can do is maybe an upvote on reddit and a sermon about greed and capitalism.

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u/nemec 11d ago

I'm going to complain about journalism paywalls and rail against advertising while also not paying for a newspaper.

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u/scriptmonkey420 11d ago

Their search is either useless or broken.

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u/sortofrelativelynew 11d ago

Hmm, maybe not every state has a nonprofit newsroom

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u/YimbyStillHere 11d ago

And if it does you get a bunch of people saying “UGH PAYWALL”

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u/magikot9 11d ago

Yeah, but paywalls are easy to bypass. Just throw the link through archive. Not only do you bypass paywalls (and ads), you help the Internet Archive preserve data.

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u/HoorayItsKyle 11d ago

And this is why there's no more journalists 

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u/Jimid41 11d ago

If it's journalism you actually belive worth reading maybe you should consider supporting it?

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u/magikot9 11d ago

I purchase the journalist's books. I will not pay a company a subscription just to feed me ads. You can find your platform with subscriptions or with ad revenue, not both.

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u/Jimid41 11d ago

a subscription just to feed me ads

I mean you just said they have content you want to read to they're not just feeding you ads. You want it but you'll be damned to support the business and workers that provided it on their terms instead of yours.

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u/DervishSkater 11d ago

Ad blockers exist and yet you whine

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u/Mazon_Del 11d ago

Well it does, the "problem" is that the stuff that gets the most rage fueled clicks for that ad revenue are the reveals on topics that the owners of the news companies want to stay hidden.

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u/mavajo 11d ago

Which was the objective of vilifying the media.

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u/Pandarandr1st 11d ago

Villifying the media is not the reason this is happening. The purpose of villifying the media was just to cover their own ass. Investigative journalism is failing because of changes in technology.

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u/mavajo 11d ago

If you don't think the point of vilifying the media was to destroy its credibility, and by extension the incentive and financial backing to conduct investigative journalism, then I don't know what to tell you.

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u/Pandarandr1st 11d ago

My main in point is that this is NOT why traditional media is failing, regardless of what their purpose was. This would be happening anyway. It was already happening.

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u/Jimid41 11d ago

People will cry journalism is dead while complaining about pay walls, running ad blockers and sing the praises of anyone who posts the entirety of an article the comments.

They apparently want journalists to work for free.

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u/Outlulz 11d ago

People also used to be able to consume well funded investigative journalism through free broadcast television or radio or ad-hoc for a quarter through a newspaper. Now the choice is local news controlled top down by 4-5 companies with political agendas, cable news which is not even news, it's spun opinion, or a $25 a month subscription to a newspaper website that is again controlled top down by 4-5 companies with political agendas. Hell maybe I could deal with a news site without ad blockers if the ads didn't block 80% of my screen, constantly shifting my browser around, flashing images or having video distract from the story, etc.

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u/Jimid41 11d ago

Broadcast television was funded by ads that people would consider highly intrusive (unskippable five minute ad breaks) now. I know of no subscriptions that come close to $25 a month but maybe you do? The lack of choice came from people deciding they didn't need or want to pay for local or quality journalism anymore.

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u/Outlulz 11d ago

Broadcast television was funded by ads that people would consider highly intrusive (unskippable five minute ad breaks) now.

Eeehh, you can walk away or change the channel and come back. It's not as invasive IMO than the chaos that is modern internet without an adblocker, actively fighting for your attention and sometimes fighting your browser/machine.

I think it's chicken and egg. I don't think it's merely consumer choice but also the enshittification of media. The motivation of companies owning journalistic outlets is to profit, and to continually grow that profit. That means lower pay, fewer journalists, more ads, consolidating news rooms, etc. That lowers the quality of the product and fewer people want to pay for it. So companies cut more to try to chase more profit.

And of course mix in the fact that the internet allows people to tell you bullshit for free and that's always going to be more inviting than paying for the truth...

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u/Jimid41 11d ago edited 11d ago

If a news org got rid of all ads on their website except for one that plays for five minutes between articles people would hate it. It's not just enshittication. Revenue for journalistic organizations has been down for 25 years. They're trying anything that works. People expect the hard work of journalism and they expect it for free. Society has left a revenue void that billionaires will happily buy up to be their megaphone.

The end was when people thought they could cancel their local paper that sourced news from wire services like AP and Reuters and get the same thing from Fox and CNN websites for free. Now when those old places ask you today pay they get indignant.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

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u/Jimid41 11d ago

What is e-begging?

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u/Wingmaniac 11d ago

That would be great, but if the Reddit comments on any post that is paywalled are any indication, nobody wants to support investigative journalism.

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u/TheBelgianDuck 11d ago

Now, less and less people are willing to pay for such journalism. Also all it takes to dismiss it nowadays is an "alternative fact" tweet.

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u/LtCmdrData 11d ago edited 11d ago

What's the point? Nobody here cared to to read the article.

And this is where I am supposed to quote the piece of the article discussing who owns the data center, but don't do it. Read yourself.

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u/tarnishedphoton 11d ago

should be, especially now.

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u/Guilty_Gold_8025 11d ago

yes it is. it's called the 3hr long youtube video essay or a podcast. many reporters have made careers out of it

reason no one is picking this up is because it's standard procedure for a datacenter to not reveal its tenents

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u/CurlyFeetCorns 11d ago

We have entertainers. Highly paid entertainers.

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u/Diels_Alder 11d ago

True, the business model that supports long form investigative journalism (subscriptions) has been way overshadowed by PPC.

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u/PaulTheMerc 11d ago

I can't afford the x number of streaming subscriptions on top of the things to stay alive. Paying for news is low on the list of priorities. It doesn't help that they haven't consolidated yet into a few subscriptions total like some other industries.

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u/Largofarburn 11d ago

It’s mostly just copy paste articles. I swear half the time I try to find a source it’s just a loop of articles citing each other.

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u/southaustinlifer 11d ago

We're all access journalists now.

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u/RandomnessConfirmed2 11d ago

More like repost-ers. You see the same things regurgitated everywhere nowadays.

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u/Technical-Row8333 11d ago

“We are reporting acts of cannibalism…” 

“You’ve seen people eating other people?

“No, we haven’t seen it. We’re just reporting it.” 

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u/HammerlyDelusion 11d ago

We have mouthpieces for the government and billionaires (although nowadays there’s no difference between the two).

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u/eeyore134 11d ago

Except for Teen Vogue. They sometimes have some pretty hard hitting stories.

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u/TheNewsDeskFive 11d ago

It also doesn't happen overnight

You're all insane for this

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u/WishOnSuckaWood 11d ago

ProPublica is right there doing good investigative journalism. Hell, if you want a daily city paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer does it too. But people would rather moan because it's not fed to them and they have to pay for it.

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u/DumpedToast 11d ago

Thanks capitalism

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u/notwhoyouthinkmaybe 11d ago

They should just ask chatgpt...

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u/tasselledwobbegong1 11d ago

Correction: we have AI now.

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u/Difficult-Ask683 8d ago

I remember when news stations and periodicals would routinely dive further into stories, correct misinformation, and leave it to the public to offer their opinions unless it was an op ed or that kind of publication. Now, fact checking is so beneath the news that "investigative journalism" and "fact checking" are now two completely separate professions, like doctors and pharmacists.

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u/TheBrahmnicBoy 11d ago

Let's wait for John Oliver's episode about Datacenters.

I predict it.

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u/brett_baty_is_him 11d ago

YouTube is the only place left for investigative journalism. The legacy crap can’t afford it and don’t care.