Clayton Morris, thank you so much
for doing this.
A lot of us have been focused on
the AI slash data center story from
a badly informed tech
perspective, trying to answer the
question, will machines
become our masters?
Is this the end of the human race?
But there's another component to
the story which may be bigger and it
has to do with the physical world,
the demands of AI on that world
and the short-term implications for
the rest of us because
of the construction of these data
centers And you have been on this.
More than anyone I know.
So can you just frame the
way that you're looking at AI in
data centers? Why is it important?
Well, I think it's so important for
these communities.
You're seeing, if we, we step
back, there's so much math involved
in this.
And, you know, I always say that
they're like every real estate story
is all local.
So it's all different.
What's happening in New York from
what's happening in Texas right now,
what's happening in Quincy
Washington or
Homer city, Pennsylvania.
Like it's all different, but
it's all of the same, you know, it's
all of the same animal,
so to speak.
And so...
We are, I don't even think
we're at the beginning of
this because there's so much
discussion about AI, just flip on
CNBC or Bloomberg or anything.
It's AI everywhere, we're gonna hit
an AI bubble.
We haven't even started
this build out for
AI data centers across the United
States. And I honestly think we
are at the precipice of a major
transformation for humanity.
And we won't know for years whether
it's good or bad.
Um, there were studies done on
Google, the Google effect back in
like 2011, you know, our kids like
outsourcing their ability
to search for things to Google.
Uh, like think about how funny
that is now in hindsight all these
years later, but we are,
I think at the beginning of this
build out, we haven't even begun to
see the thousands of data centers
and the way that this is going to
change humanity for good and bad.
And I think that anyone who says
they know for sure doesn't know.
And I think a lot of these companies
that are spending $500 billion,
we just got word that Nvidia is
going to take out credit in order
to build out massive amounts of
infrastructure. So this is like a
new phase of this now, not even
their own money.
It's going to be a credit story,
borrowing money at enormous
sums from Wall Street in order
build out this infrastructure.
So just at like a micro
level, if you just think about
communities and what it means to
just you and I, it means right
now increased prices
for kilowatt hours, just to run your
home.
It means increased prices
at the grocery store just to
get additional groceries because the
cost of everything has gone up.
It means water
shortages across the United States.
We're already seeing it.
We're all already seeing its effects
on ranchers.
So It's so
big and there's so many pieces
of this. You've got the robotics
piece of this, which is
the human robotics layer.
So AI will of course be involved in
every level of, of robotics,
which is going to be as, if you
listen to Elon Musk, and I believe
he's a smart, very smart person,
he says that his Tesla
robotics division is going to be the
biggest product in human history,
is optimists robots.
So if you take them at his word, or
even if half of his word is true,
and that's just one company.
The human robotics element of this
is going to be absolutely massive.
And of course, then the AI, the
compute power that will be layered
inside of that hardware is
the requirements for that are
going to be astronomical and
that's just one piece of it.
Every company that
exists right now, just about every
company is incorporating AI,
it's like the AI that you don't
see. That I think is in many ways
the most like invasive of
all of this. So for instance, zoom,
like you and I are talking right now
on zoom, right?
Well, they've recently sort of
shifted to becoming really
an AI productivity company in
many, many ways. That's their focus
now. Forget being just like, Hey,
we're going to have a meeting over
zoom.
Now they've added in a take notes
feature, which can use AI and
basically take notes for you during
your meeting.
And now their focus is AI so AI
being built into everything you can
think of may ask you to pause and
ask a machine
Let me ask you to pause and ask a
question for
a sec. So just to take
Zoom as an example.
So Zoom, again, being
this software program that
allows people to speak on video
conferencing between each other
anywhere in the world.
Basically what they're saying is
we're gonna transcribe every
conversation and that's
gonna be helpful as a productivity
device somehow.
But what happens to
the data?
So the substance of your
conversation is now on
a Zoom server.
Do you have control over what's
done with that data, with your
words, with that information?
I mean, I think this idea that you
have control over any of your data
is a joke.
You can ask companies to delete your
data, but of course, when the FBI
then wants to subpoena that data,
suddenly it manages to show back up
again. So wait, I thought, you know,
like that you could just like delete
that stuff or Google tells you that,
Hey, after 30 days, we delete this
stuff. It's all there.
It's fractals.
It's always going to be there.
So Zoom, you know, you opting into
this, the take notes feature, and I
don't know the full backend of what
Zoom's operation looks like, but
most of it is all built on Amazon
web services.
Most of it is built on Amazons
infrastructure from Palantir
to Flock Safety.
You know, they'll tell you that
they've got their own proprietary
layer of what they do
with that data, but all of it's
built on like Amazon infrastructure
and the sort of this backend
infrastructure.
So where is that data going?
It's living in these data centers.
And
being built out at a clip that we've
never seen before.
Like, so right now there are about
809,
give or take a few data
centers being built right now,
there's about 4,800 of
them that are currently built.
There's another think 3,900
that are in,
that have been projected to be
built over the next year,
doubling the amount of data centers
in the United States, and they're
not getting smaller, they're getting
bigger.
We're getting more massive.
Take for instance, like the project
Stargate in Texas and Abilene,
Texas, massive, massive
infrastructure that Trump of course
was championing.
And a lot of this was
opened up.
We shouldn't forget at the very
beginning of the Trump presidency
with all these executive orders,
um, so that you could start building
a data center without even getting
environmental permits so you could
start the construction.
So if like the redacted news,
you know, uh, the data
center wants to get started, I could
go out tomorrow.
Say I'm going to buy some land and I
could start this construction local
permits and get started.
Forget the EPA requirements, like
how much pollutants will be spun off
as a result of the diesel generator
backups or the water influx
or any of the particulate matter
that will be spun off as result of
the center, the water usage,
all of that.
Don't worry about it because now the
EPA doesn't care.
You can get those, you can already
start construction.
And then of course,
on top of that, you have Trump's
AI litigation team.
Which is pretty funny when you
look at it. So the Department of
Justice has built like an AI
litigation team to go
out to different states, like you
can see where the priorities are.
So if there's a state or a community
that says, we don't want data
centers in our backyard, or
we're putting onerous
rules in place and regulations in
our back yard because we don't want
these things here.
Well, here comes Trump's Department
of justice and the AI
litigation team to
town and not staying at a best
Western when they arrive.
And they're going to start to look
at your community and sue you
for onerous regulations
against data centers.
This was part of that executive
orders and executive actions at the
very beginning of Trump's
presidency.
So glad we have an AI litigation
team in place.
Wait, so our Department of
Justice, which I thought we owned as
citizens, is now
working on behalf of private
companies, which we do not own,
in order to force communities
to subsidize those private
companies?
Yes, so under the
attorney general under this AI
litigation team this task force
Will go out and I'll see hey,
you know did You know
did this community in upstate New
York put in place some
toxic diesel particulates
Zoning law that's not going to
allow This data
center to be built because they'll
need backup diesel generators and
when they kick on every 30 You know
every few days to
test the diesel backup and
it's gonna shoot off these
particulates and so forth.
We don't want that here.
We don't want it polluting our air
and our waterways by the way.
So.
That's what this task force will
look at. Well, maybe we just don't
want it. Maybe we just think it's
ugly or we disagree with the whole
project, or it doesn't
matter what the motive is, it's our
community.
And don't we have some right to
shape its future because it's
ours?
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To be the loopholes that will
be used here. And we'll see what
this data AI litigation task
force does.
It's like the white supremacy
task force or the anti-Semitism task
force that'll be deployed across the
United States.
So it'll be interesting to see like
what loophols are employed.
But good news is like 500 or so
different communities have already
fought back against this.
There was a...
A friend of the show, Derek Brose
and Hakeem Anwar put on a day of
action on the beginning of August,
um, against these data centers.
So people around the country to come
out and say, we don't want these
things in our backyard, at least
kind of drawing attention to
them.
We don't the noise.
We don't want the pollution.
Um, and there's so
much just misinformation and there
is fear, uh,
about all of these data center right
now. And there's just a lot of.
There's just a lot of BS that's
kind of floating around about how
these things operate.
Maybe we could talk about it if you
want to kind of dive a little more
deeply.
Well, I want to dive very deeply
into it. I mean, you've already, you
know, we're 10 minutes into this.
You've already shocked me.
So, um, I had no idea that was
happening.
And, uh, you, know, if you were to
have dinner with me, I would
pretend to be highly informed on
everything, but obviously that's not
true because I didn't even know
this, I didn't know that there was a
department of justice AI task
force designed, uh
to pummel communities
into accepting things they
don't want, which is to say taking
sovereignty from American citizens.
So.
Um, yeah, I do want to go into
greater depth. So tell me about the
misconceptions or as you said,
misinformation.
Well, for one thing, there's,
if you listen to wall street or you
listen to the people that the
sycophants, you know, like on CNBC
or the people who love to have these
CEOs on their shows and, you know,
uh, access journalists, you who
loves to have the CEOs on their
shows, and kind of promote AI
data center build outs and all the
new technology that they're rolling
out.
And so some of this technology is,
is good, right?
There is actual good
cooling technology that's emerging
from companies like a Vertiv,
VRT, which instead
of using water
that would cool it with using
evaporation technology, which is
the, the big, one of the biggest
problems, forget the, the
electricity piece of this for a
second. That's a big, that's the
other big part of the story.
By the way, this energy, you know,
it's like you can It's like you can
rob Peter to pay Paul.
It's, we're not using water.
Oh yeah, but you're using the energy
now, the electricity to use dry
cooling to cool.
Oh, okay. So it's just like, it's
like the shell game.
They say moving things around a
board, you know?
So when you see these like CEOs come
on CNBC or Bloomberg or whatever,
and tell you how they've solved the
cooling problem because they don't
need water, eh.
Okay, now what about the massive
amounts of electricity that you need
now to use, dry cooling?
So it, anyway, it just shows- It's
Well, it takes resources to make
things. That's just the bottom line.
It takes resources to make thing and
the supply of resources is finite.
So anyone, it doesn't mean you
shouldn't make things, you should,
but every act of
creation is a trade-off.
So it's not clear why we
have to lie about that.
Let's just be honest about it.
But anyway, so, but to the question
of water, can you go into that?
How much water, exclusive
of this new and promising technology
you just described, Like, in
general, how much water does it
take? To cool a data center.
Hundreds of millions of gallons and
most, let's be clear, most of the
data centers are using this
evaporative cooling system and
I mean by a huge percentage.
So you know, that's great that we've
got some new technology out there
that uses cooling plates and it
keeps it in like a closed loop.
So the water is like right up
against the computers, the GPUs,
and then it kind of flows through
and it gets cooled almost like by an
air conditioning unit and then comes
back a little cooler.
But still that excess heat needs
to go somewhere, right?
So it pushes off somewhere.
It's not, but the water usage, yes,
you're limiting that.
But on most of them, overwhelmingly
it's evaporative
cooling. And so you're, it's
all just being wasted.
Hundreds of millions of gallons.
If you think about an average
American home about, you know,
200 gallons to like run an
American home, 300
million gallons.
Or 500 million gallons
of water just for these data
centers. And we're talking like
small data centers,
so these communities are already
seeing, they're already pressed.
And if you go to the desert
Southwest or you move out towards
Colorado, Nevada,
Utah, Wyoming,
a lot of the ranchers in these areas
are at their limit with
their ability to get water to just
feed their heads of cattle.
So everything is so dry.
I just interviewed a rancher who's
dealing with this right now.
So in order to get permits to pull,
you know, to pull water,
to feed their heads of cattle, they
have to go to the city, the
municipality, they have to get those
rights. But most of those permits
are already used.
Like they're not, there's no like
new permits just like sitting there
for Bob rancher to come grab.
So they're already tapped,
tapping into these aquifers.
I mean, requiring them to go down,
pull out any kind of water they can
from these aquifer, right?
So those are already tapped.
A lot in the west of the United
States.
And then on top of that, now you
have these data centers that are
coming in and all these ranchers are
asking the question,
how are they able to
get water? Like we've applied for
permits and we as ranchers are not
allowed to get, but they are?
Where are they getting the permit?
And so they're carving out these
special permits for
these rancher's, which is, I mean,
excuse me, for these data center's,
which is unbelievable on
its surface.
And so these ranchers then are
having to compete for what little
water scraps are left to
feed their head of cattle, which
brings up a larger question about
wanting to decimate the beef
industry, of course, and you have,
you know, 68 million heads of
cattle. How many of those are
being whittled away, whitted away,
and then you've got wildfires out
west on top of that, which is
destroying the grazing land, so they
don't have enough water for that.
But the data centers are fine to get
these water rights, somehow.
People should ask questions about
that. Like how are they able to get
these carve-outs to tap into these
aquifers in ways that
these ranchers are not?
It's very interesting.
So...
The misinformation right now is
this idea that, well, now we've
got this new sort of liquid cooling
set up, and so therefore
we're not using as much water.
And that is the case in some, in
some cases with some of this new
technology, but a lot of that is
even built out yet.
Um, but you're seeing like these
companies like Vertiv, like
exploding.
I think they're even more valuable
now, like share price, not
more valuable, but like more
than Amazon.
Because they're selling these
cooling technologies that they can
use in these data centers.
So that's just one piece of it, but
the majority of these data center
are using an enormous
amount of water that we simply don't
have.
And you're having these communities
now fighting over it in
order to, you know,
homeowners who are having to deal
with this now. And of course, the
other big piece of this is the smart
meters.
So just take, for example, like
Aurora, Colorado, not too far
from me.
Where they implemented these smart
water meters so they can monitor
at every 15 minute increments, like
the amount of water that you're
using as a, you
know, as a private citizen
compared to
the water that's being used from
these data centers, I don't know
what sort of metering system they
have on these data centers, but
there's a massive
data center called QTS
in Aurora, Colorado,
massive, huge.
And in that, in that
setup, they've got,
they're using an enormous amount of
water, uh, and the
homes around Aurora, Colorado are
using now these smart meters to
monitor how much irrigation, how
much water they're using, and
they've sent out thousands of
notices to people that live there
that, Hey, you've
used too much water, you're using
too much water, and these smart
meters are only going to increase
across the United States.
There's many communities that are
now rolling out these water smart
meters.
In order to make sure that you're
not using enough water.
But are those same municipalities
sending out notices to the
data centers to let them know how
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I'm confused.
I mean, so they're one of the
longterm and distressing trends in
the United States is
the explosion in
population in places that don't have
the resources to sustain that
population. So I'm thinking Clark
County, Nevada, Maricopa County,
Arizona, you know, Phoenix,
Vegas, Denver,
parts of California. Like, they
don't. Have the water for this
number of people.
So we know this, no one seems
to care. This is going to be a huge
issue going forward.
But there are other parts of the
United States, upper Midwest, for
example, that have a ton of water
and not a lot of people.
So why would you ever build a data
center in Colorado, for example,
which already doesn't have the
resources to support the people?
Like who's making these decisions
and why do you have any idea?
Why, why is every data center not
being built on Lake Superior?
Well, because
the money. So just take, for
example, I believe it's probably the
money, but a lot of it is
these data center build-outs now.
Well, a couple of pieces.
I'll take Quincy Washington.
I think it's an interesting sort of
anecdote of a story.
So
The propaganda around Quincy
Washington is that
data centers saved this town.
Data centers came in, used the
hydroelectric power here and
the influx, the tax basis now,
I think it was like three different
centers that were built, three
different data centers.
The amount of influx of like
a 56% increase
in taxes flew into like
Quincy, Washington.
So they built $120 million new
school, they built all new sewer
infrastructure inside of Quincy,
Washington, um,
parks, uh, water slide
parks for the kids crime has
dropped and they point and
they blame it specifically on the
data centers.
So all of the money that flows into
these communities from their taxes,
um is
exorbitant.
So they don't want to turn away from
this additional tax revenue in
these communities.
And that to me is, it's always the
money, right? That's at the heart of
it is clearly it's clearly
the tax revenue that's coming in.
The other piece of this is that I
think these companies are telling,
I say they're telling lies,
but they're certainly, they're
certainly structuring these deals in
a very interesting way, which is We
will. We're not going to pull from
your resources.
So we're not gonna tap the
electricity in your town.
We're going to tap the excess
water.
We figured that out, which
is laughable because
there's always the spillover effect
of these things.
It's not self-contained, but a lot
of these new data centers being
built profess to be self-
contained, which is
we're going produce our own power.
So you don't have to worry about it.
So we are going to use these SMRs,
be small.
Nuclear reactors these modular
nuclear reactors there's companies
like new scale technology
which are you know exploding these
like and so amazon can
put a nuclear reactor at
one of these data centers a small
nuclear one we don't need to rely on
three mile island which by the way
is being revitalized right now in
order to power data centers i
know if people recall the fun that
happened at three mile islands but
so that's being revitalized
for data centers
So they can build self-contained
power, modular nuclear
technology.
The other story, and I was speaking
to a source at Amazon, um,
who it was just
crazy to hear, uh, what,
what their build out looks like
right now.
And said that when they go
in, they're looking at like defunct
coal plants or other
power plants that are nearby these
data centers.
And if they can't get the
power they need from the local
community, They just buy
up the, like
the coal powered plant or
the, uh, you know,
the, the uh, the other, the other
power plants that were there.
They buy them up and then they
revitalize them, bringing, you know,
a couple of thousand people build it
out to a new, uh a new
energy complex.
And then.
Oh, you think, oh, that's great.
So now that, that coal plant
that you're taking over, which is
defunct to closed three years ago or
four years ago, or 10 years ago.
Under regulations and onerous
regulations and so forth,
you're going to revitalize it and
then the community will benefit.
No, no, no.
No, they're going to get all the
power. So they're not giving any of
this power back to the
community.
The coal plants specifically,
and the ones that are in Nevada and
Colorado where Amazon is coming in
and building these facilities.
They're buying them up and
revitalizing them and they're
turning them into natural gas
facilities.
So that it's far cleaner, they don't
have to deal with the coal
regulations and then they will use
all of that energy.
Oh, okay, so then it won't have an
effect on the community then, right?
So then energy prices won't have
gone up in the community.
Oh, no, no.
In fact, the sources I've spoken
to at Amazon said, absolutely the
energy costs will go up in
those communities and they already
have. So,
but. So they're self-contained.
Why am I energy costs going up?
It's because the spillover effect of
it all and the
grid capacity and everything else.
So you're already seeing this across
the country.
People without data centers, even in
their backyard yet are
seeing increases to their kilowatt
hours, their per kilowatt hour
upwards of 12, 13, 14%,
just in prices.
We in Colorado have already seen
prices skyrocket
even without the massive data center
build-outs because it's future
projections.
So it's the auction process
of electricity.
So the future projections on the
auction process believe
that they will be over capacity.
They believe and local communities
are saying, expect blackouts.
If I could, I'll give you an
example, Homer city, Pennsylvania,
Western Pennsylvania, near where I
went to college out there,
University of Pittsburgh and that
whole area in Western PA.
This is a really interesting
anecdote because Homer city
You know, their energy prices have
already increased, but
they're building this,
the data centers that have come in
there have revitalized
the old coal plants that are there.
And were shut down in 2023.
Now they're billing this massive
Homer city energy
complex on top of
it, converting it to natural gas.
But the people of Homer city don't
get the benefit of it.
They don't any of that.
It's gonna go to the data center
build out and
I think the mayor, the other
members of the local
city council have already seen those
prices go up and have said
that we will expect blackouts.
This is Pennsylvania.
This is in Texas where you get
incredible heat waves.
You know, you still get heat waves
and things, but not like Texas or
Arizona.
So expect black outs like over the
next few years, our grid cannot
handle this.
And so the people
of this area that
live in the surrounding area can
expect to see their homes affected
by this and blackouts that
will unfold in these neighborhoods.
And again, that's Pennsylvania,
Western Pennsylvania, nowhere near
like Abilene, Texas or
Arizona.
So these things are very real for
people and the
costs that will be passed on to
the consumers where energy costs are
already skyrocketing.
Uh is is very real.
I know the trump administration says
well We're putting this cap on as
part of this, you know, this ai
build out We're, putting this gap on
it so that we're gonna make these
producers pay that
but there's no evidence that they
are Like we are already
paying more for electricity
Already, I don't know what it is for
you like in maine like if you've
seen it there if you know Like
what data center because it seems
like i'm looking at the data center
map in main is like very minimal
For build outs from what I can tell
but so you have the future
projections of costs of this energy
build out that are already affecting
people.
I mean, I guess I'm really I'm
struck by so many parts of the
story, but the one that
I'm fixated on maybe most is
the total powerlessness of
the people who live in this country
to have any effect on any of this at
all.
Going back to what you said at the
outset of the conversation about the
Department of Justice targeting
anyone who complains about this or
tries to slow it down.
Have there been I don't think most
people are for this.
I don't think people understand
exactly what the purpose.
Of it is, I don't think there's been
much of an attempt to convince us
that this will improve our lives,
which is to say the technology
itself, AI, data centers,
is that, how is that good for me?
How does it make this a better
country for my kids?
No one's spending any time trying
to convince that it is.
It's all scaring the crap out of
people, maybe for good
reason, maybe not. I really don't
know what the motive is.
You talk to an AI person, someone
developing AI, and
they spend very little time telling
you how this is going to cure cancer
and a whole lot of time telling you
how it may end humanity.
So it's like, I don't really get
what's going on here, but I know
that people aren't for it.
Has anybody had any success
in protecting
their own communities from
destruction by this?
Maybe New York state is the only
real story right now from a state
level where you have the state now
banning the build out
of data centers right now.
So, and you know, you have governor
Abbott in Texas,
uh, who is now putting a
one year moratorium on
data center build outs through an
audit process. So you have to prove
like your energy efficiency and all
of that in order to be built out in
Texas.
But also I love, I love the
hypocrisy there.
So it's okay that we can have like
massive child trafficking operations
like happening, right?
Right. The state of Texas and right
under your nose and old Walmart
facilities and thousands
of children being trafficked and,
but we're going to, we're going to
audit data centers.
Abbott has overseen the
total destruction of Texas,
and that's, I don't,
I'm not saying he's evil, he's just
weak, but yeah,
doesn't get the credit he deserves
for that, but it'll be obvious in
the next 10 years.
But New York, I mean.
So we'll see. I mean, I don't know.
And I don't know what's going to
happen
in Texas. I mean you have this
Project Stargate project in
Abilene, Texas, arguably the large,
one of the largest data center
buildouts in the world, uh,
in Project Stargate, one that
president Trump has championed.
So I wonder if there's going be any
pushback from his, uh the AI task
force.
Um, you know, if anyone speaks out
against that in the state of Texas,
but New York and I don't
know how much of this is, um,
You know, how, how much of this will
continue and will New York be like
the state that says we're done with
data centers altogether, sorry, go
someplace else, um,
what will that look like?
Uh, and I, I don't know,
and, I dunno if this will be rolled
back pending some,
Hey, we now feel that they're
self-sufficient, the power is
self sufficient, that they don't
need to rely on us at all, uh,
for energy, for water.
They figured out the diesel
generation backup so that's not
spilling off particulates and all of
these other things and Now we can
welcome them back Uh to
the state Um,
you know, and then you have
governments, uh, you have local
governments like in the state of
georgia uh,
of course who are going after and
using imminent domain to
Seize land just like you would to
build a new highway seize
people's homes in order to
build ai data centers because it's a
As president Trump, as part of these
executive orders, I mean, he,
he was explicit that this is
a national security issue for
the United States of America.
So this is another big piece of
this.
And I don't think enough people are
talking about what the Trump
administration just did, even just a
few weeks ago with the FCC ruling.
I don't know if, are you familiar
with the FCC ruling?
Totally ignorant as usual,
and I'm also confused as to why this
is a national security issue.
I don't even know what that means.
I mean China, China, and China, but
okay, how is it a
national security issue?
What are you talking about?
Do you have any clue?
So, I mean, I guess if you look at
from a military perspective,
to make sure that we have the AI
infrastructure that can deal with
the future of modern warfare,
um, whether it's drone capabilities,
robotics on the battlefield, it all
comes back to war, of course.
So to make that Palantir,
you know, Palantire using AWS,
it's not really public, but they
really use a lot of Amazon web
services as the backend of Palantyr
with their own sort of proprietary
front end of all of this.
Then you're building out all of
these, these new government data
centers that Amazon is helping
build.
And what's interesting about these
data centers that Amazon is building
for the military or for
the Pentagon or the CIA is you've
got like eight layers of security in
these facilities so that
even if president Trump wanted to go
through them, he has to go through
like eight layer of like, you know,
bio scanning.
And I don't know, it's like the
movies where you walk through a
corridor and one door opens and
scans your eyeballs.
And get smart. Yeah.
Yeah. So like eight layers of
this stuff in these facilities and
Amazon builds this for
the CIA and others.
And as they get to a certain level
of the build out, they basically
hand the keys over to the guys on
the inside and they say, we'll take
it from here.
And so then Amazon's like, okay, we
built, you know, now if you call us,
if you need us, and that's how this
operates. And so they will only
come back. I've learned if
there's like some sort of massive
power outage or something like that,
they have to come back in.
But otherwise it's like the CIA then
runs these facilities.
Um, and by the way, some of these
facilities are being built
kind of in plain sight, but inside
of other facilities like
veterans affairs buildings.
So you think, oh, that's a veterans
affairs building, but inside is a
hidden, is a Hidden Operations Data
Center.
Inside of some of these facilities
that I've learned as well, which is
interesting. So a lot of these
government buildings, you think on
the outside are one thing, um,
an IRS building, but on the inside
is, uh, is it hidden, it's a hidden
data center, um for,
for monitoring its citizens.
So national security, the idea that
we don't want China to have this AI
layer for all of the
data collection that we're doing in
the United States, whether it's
flock safety. I know that's the most
like kind of public facing one right
now, but that data goes somewhere
and it goes through AWS.
It goes through Amazon web services,
the same way that Palantir does and
all of it and it needs to be stored
somewhere.
So it needs to be stored in these
massive facilities, whether it's
Nevada and other places and all
of this data that's being collected
on Americans from, you know,
phone calls to email, everything
that they're, they're using, uh,
to scan and, uh, and track us
at this moment.
Um, and so they don't want China
involved in this, of course.
And that's the outwardly
facing, you know, enemy
we don't wanna use.
We don't want, um,
any of their models, their AI
models, we want to use our own.
Models that are helped inside the
United States and funded by the
United States government or in part
with large grants and so forth.
So that's like the national security
piece of this.
Um, so about a week
ago, there's a story that really
didn't get much attention, but it's
huge and it's going to,
it's gonna further bring
more AI, build out an
infrastructure into the United
states in a huge way, and
that is the FCC's ruling on.
Hardware, basically the components
for robotics cannot
be built outside of the United
States.
So 65% of the component
parts in your humanoid robots
or robotics need to be built within
the United states now.
Well, Elon Musk, I mean, and Tesla
and Optimus, like that's a huge,
they're gonna have to shift
dramatically
so that now instead of the most
of it being built in China, most of
it will need to be built in the
United States.
The actuators, fingers for
robot, all of that stuff needs to
now be built in the United States,
65% of it.
So.
That's another big piece of this war
right now over AI between China.
That's gonna increase though to over
80% by the year 2030.
So that ruling is like, hey, get
your stuff figured out now at 65%
because it's gonna go up to 80%.
So all of this stuff will be built
in the United States or at least
presumably it'll be built in the
Unites States.
And then this AI layer inside the
United states is just gonna grow.
So speaking of sources at Amazon,
They're They're billed
out, they're sold out.
This blew me away.
They are sold out for
eight, like if I wanted to
like redacted news, my
little crappy show, like, if I want
to build an AI data center and,
or even just use a part of compute,
like with Amazon web services
for my show or
something, or you wanted to do it
with, uh, with, with the Tucker
Carlson network or something,
Amazon has sold out through 2030 for
capacity.
Like we want a portion of this data
center to be devoted to whatever.
Sorry, we're sold out through
2030.
And we don't have enough capacity
now. And we have projected to
be building out thousands of
additional data centers in the
next few years.
So when I said at the beginning,
we're not even at the begin of this
and people are already talking about
a bubble and this.
No, and there's so many other pieces
to this. I'm sorry, I'm just kind of
rambling here, but.
All these ideas kind of fly into my
head about how crazy this is.
Cause there's so many pieces of
this. You have the robotics piece of
this, you have the information
layer.
Then you have like the factory piece
of.
Um, then you have.
The efficiency piece of, this inside
of these factories, uh,
then you have just the actual
infrastructure to build out all of
these different data centers and
then all of the companies
surrounding those build outs
like this blew me away.
I don't know if you've heard of
United, uh, United
rentals. Have you heard of this
company? No, it's just one example.
So when you think about Amazon goes
in and builds a new data
center, well, or meta or
Google or whomever they hire,
they don't like come in there and
like change the community and like
thousands of people get jobs.
Like people come in for like
about 18 months at most, and they
leave.
So it's kind of like the gold rush
or like, you know, St. Elmo's in
Colorado ghost towns.
You know, they come in, they do what
they need and then they leave So
they hire these companies to bring
in Caterpillar, earth digging
machines, and United Rentals is one
of those companies, right?
So, and they're, they've got now
sites in 1000 different locations.
So, Hey, United Rental,
we're building out a data center in
Reno. Do you have a location nearby?
You can bring earth diggers, movers,
generators, backup generators, all
of that. Yep, we got you down.
And so then they'll come in and
bring all that equipment, build it
out. And then it leaves.
That's just like one piece of the
puzzle.
Then you've got like the porta
potties companies, like you've got
so many pieces of this, this
build out that's happening.
And so people are like, well, it
creates
jobs temporarily.
And a lot of those people come in
for every job.
They're not like creating new jobs
every time, right?
They're just, they just go to a
location and they go to the next
location. So not creating new.
Jobs and these data centers really
only employ at the most around
maybe 50 people.
And even that number is dwindling.
So, sorry, there's just so many
pieces of this that it's like...
And there's just like a lack of
information out there about it, and
I just find it just so fascinating
and frustrating and terrifying all
at the same time.
And maybe also a little bit
silly.
I mean, this is happening so
fast. And as you've pointed out,
it's so complex.
And, but it's also so expensive that
you have to ask like, well, what is
this? I mean it's an effort,
obviously to snap the control grid
into place and, you know, eliminate
dissent. Got it.
It's an offer to stay on par with
China. Got it, but, it is also
an investment opportunity for
a lot of people.
And it's the last hope
of states like California.
Which have been completely hollowed
out. I mean, the tax base in
California is like disappearing.
And so their hope is that
AI is gonna hit, this is all gonna
be incredibly profitable and they'll
be able to keep their welfare state
afloat.
Is this a good bet from
a business perspective or
is it a bubble?
And if it's the former, how exactly
does it make money?
I don't understand that part of it.
Where's the revenue come from? So
this is
one of the-
Yeah, no, this is a great question.
And so when people say we're in an
AI bubble, they don't know what
they're talking about, I believe.
Right.
Um, when Mark Cuban says, you know,
we're, we'll building out so many of
these data centers and we don't need
them and they're going to be turned
into pickleball courts, I, I think
he doesn't know when he's talking
about. I don't, from
every source I've spoken to,
we know we're not
even the beginning of this and the
demand for compute is off the
charts from different companies.
So I don't know what he's talking
about. Like these are going to be
converted to pickleball courts.
Um, I think if anything, my theory,
my theory is that these are gonna be
turned eventually.
We don't need them.
These, because they're cement and
steel, these are going to turn into
for-profit prisons.
Uh, that's just my theory.
Just throwing it out there.
Um, they're out in the middle of
nowhere.
They'll be converted and,
uh, we need them badly.
Of course, the Trump administration
loves the for- profit prison system.
So, um, I just think that that's a
perfect transition, not pickleball
court. But anyway.
So,
right now we're at the beginning of
this and I was going through
earnings reports trying to find
over the past few weeks.
The reason I say we're the beginning
this because I have not seen yet
from companies
on their earnings reports where
they have pointed to
the AI build out in their factories
equaling a percentage of
revenue to answer your question.
There's very few of
them. Right now.
But I believe that that wave is
coming.
So I think, and I'm not being
hyperbolic about it.
I really believe that the
wave is going to end that will
increase the demand a
hundred times.
There are a few companies that have
now said in some earnings and small
measure, their AI build
out has increased revenue.
So for, I'll give you an example.
There's like a, an outdoor furniture
company.
And I was going through their
reports and they were explaining
that with their AI layer
that they built in, they were
able to sort of, I don't know, bunch
furniture together in a certain way
that was more esthetically pleasing
at their stores. I don't know
exactly. And they were to increase
revenue. It also increased the
proficiency of their sales
associates. So it didn't cost jobs,
it actually increased their sales
associate's proficiency by like 82%
they claim, leading
to about a 15% increase
in revenue.
Might have the numbers slightly
different, but you get the point,
right? Like they've been doing
something the same way for 30 years,
and then suddenly they add in this
like AI efficiency layer and
suddenly they've increased their
revenue by 15% without,
like they didn't hire anybody new.
They didn't build a new factory or
new warehouse.
They just like bunched furniture
together in a certain way that like
increased something.
Um, another company,
I was looking at their earnings.
They claimed that with the scrap
metal.
That they were able to save, like
they put in an AI efficiency layer
in their metal processing
facility in their factory.
And when it would chop off pieces of
metal, that would usually lead to
about $129 million in
wasted scrap.
But by putting in this AI
efficiency, layer, they
were able to say, almost all of
that.
Like saving hundreds of millions of
dollars in non having like wasted
scrap metal.
So these are like small little
anecdotes from like a few companies
that have maybe shown some
initiative with AI.
And so if,
if we see huge increases
in efficiency and revenue,
game over.
Like, you know, there,
there's no bubble.
You know, like with the, the.com
bubble, there were people building
like fake websites, you know, what
they didn't have anything, there was
like nothing there.
It was like fake and there were so
many greedy people who were building
all these like fake websites.
I remember it well, like pets.com,
you know, all these, whatever.
And it was all just fake and it was
all greedy people.
And so I don't know.
I mean, I, I'm just going to say,
I don't know, I don't know if
like, this is all greed or
if these companies who've been doing
something a certain way for 50
years.
In their warehouse,
suddenly they add in like this AI
efficiency layer and
their revenue increases
by 20%.
Maybe they don't fire anybody.
Maybe they actually hire more
people. I don't know exactly.
So anyone who says they know is,
I don, I just, I know maybe Elon
knows, he seems to know.
I just see.
I just see, yeah, I've, and I'm
the last person who would know.
I'm happy to admit that,
but whenever I see lemming like
behavior,
I suspect the cliff is near,
you know, whenever, you
know, every midwit you run across
is saying the same thing about the
future.
I generally bet that's not what the
future is going to look like, but
you know maybe I'm in the midwet.
Um, but I have noticed all
of a sudden when the guy from Shark
Tank is like talking about stuff he
doesn't understand.
The future is data centers, I'm
like, I think the future's probably
not data centers.
But, you know, who knows?
Maybe I'm just reactionary.
No, can I say this?
I think, I think the future is human
connection.
So I think one of the, I'm always a
glass half full kind of person.
Um, I.
Think one of, the benefits of this,
despite all of its downsides is the
human interaction layer.
Um, and you're already seeing
it actually, uh,
restaurants are reporting that like
young people are coming in and
they're not drinking.
Number one, they don't, they, they
do, they don't drink alcohol.
And they're coming in, they're
bringing like a stack of like
playing cards and they're just
hanging out all night, like, or a
board game, they bring in Scrabble,
you know, and they're not, and they
don't bring their phones at all.
And they just come in and are
together.
And I think there's going to be an
insatiable desire for
human interaction with this
explosion of AI,
call it slop, call it fakery,
whatever you want to call it.
I think, there's gonna be a, a
really an insatiable desire for a
human connection.
And human interaction and
human content, you know, people to
be able to say, I'd rather watch
Tucker's show because it's real
human beings having a conversation
than the fake AI
generated garbage that, you know,
maybe Hollywood is putting out.
So, you know, I think that's one
maybe benefit, uh, is that among
young people, you're seeing this
shift. And I, I hope that that's
the case.
Um, I don't
I don't know.
I'm just more troubled about how
this is going to affect young people
than anything I see my kids.
My son just turned 16 and,
you know, and, and he's
going to go into the trades because
so many of these jobs are just being
taken by AI and
they will be, and if you don't think
that that's the case, you're fooling
yourself. Yes.
I know a lot of these wall street
types, the shark tank types are
like, this is gonna create way more
jobs.
And we don't.
Oh, maybe they're right.
And maybe there will be so many jobs
created to
help the AI efficiency layer
or help the robots, you know,
help the robot and all of this piece
of it.
I don't know that there's any
evidence that that's true.
I think most of the, the jobs that
you can name, you can
title yourself. I'm an accountant.
I'm a pilot.
I'm this, I'm that are
going to be replaced by AI.
I mean, at what point soon will
FedEx all of their
aircraft be run?
By AI instead of
pilots, or maybe because of
a pilot's union, there'll be one
pilot on board just to oversee the
AI, but certainly won't be two,
certainly won't t be three.
So if you're thinking about becoming
a pilot, like when my son was, he's
kind of like step back from that
because like there's, that's
going to, you're not going to make
any money on that. And you're going
to be able to, those jobs are going
to disappear.
You're already seeing it in the
military. It's already
happening.
So going into the trades,
um, I'm just concerned with my kids,
you know, like, so my son going into
electrical engineering and learning
how to work
with his hands and, and be able to
do something meaningful.
Um, you know?
I don't know. It's a, it's a scary
time. I'm, just really worried about
the cognitive offload too, for
children.
Um, Yeah, I brought
up the, I don't know if you
remember that study back in 2011,
that Google, the Google effect
study.
And, you know, it was the
idea how much
are we outsourcing search
and other things to Google instead
of doing it ourselves and
the sort of idea of search offload
or cognitive offload, and
I'm sure you do it.
I know I do it It's like, Oh,
if I know I can just search for it
and find it, then I don't need to
store it up here.
Yes.
You know, it's like the Socrates.
It's, like, what a Socrates and
Plato Socrates being worried about,
uh, we won't be
able to remember things because
we're not, you know, we're we're
going to write everything down.
You know?
Um, and the only reason
we know that is cause Plato wrote it
down. But anyway, so
that was the fear on the Google
effect side.
Now it's really transitioned to
something else entirely with AI.
Beyond just...
Oh, I don't need to remember it
because I can search for it later.
And Google will just like surface
that one page.
But even with that, you had to go
and do the research yourself.
You had to click on the link.
You had read the book.
You had the synthesize the
information. You had an organize
your thoughts.
You had a reason you
had a write it down.
So I can just think about college
for myself, just having to get like
five or six books on the topic.
I remember writing a whole report on
vanilla in Latin America and
I had to go to this special library
at the university of Pittsburgh's
campus that you had to go under like
lock and key because these were old,
rare books from like 150 years ago
and had to sit in that library.
I couldn't take them out because they
were rare. And I had do all of this
research on vanilla and
all of this in Latin American.
And after reading these like four or
five books, I had a write, I had
synthesize my thoughts.
I had organized my thoughts, which
I'm not very good at.
It's something I've struggled with
my whole life, but I've gotten
better at it because I've
been forced to do it, to write
essays, to write, to reason,
to think, to put all of these things
down in an argument
or a narrative,
become a better writer just by
writing over the years,
and then present my paper and then
get a C on the paper.
It's pretty normal for me or get a
B.
But now kids are just outsourcing
that fully. It's the cognitive
offload.
Where they're saying, Hey, I'm an
eighth grade. So write me,
write me a paper as if an eighth
grader wrote it about
the fall of the Roman empire and
don't make it sound like AI.
So.
No amount of research, forget the
Google effect.
Now it's, you're gonna do all
the research for me.
You're gonna synthesize everything.
You're going to organize everything.
And then you're going present it and
I'm going to turn it in.
And so what these studies have found
recently is that kids are
actually doing really well with
their projects, using AI,
and they're turning in like great
work.
But then when they're tested on it,
They fail because they, they have no
memory of having done any of the
work.
They didn't sit in the library and
research vanilla all afternoon
drinking, you know, big gulps.
They, they just offloaded all of
that. And so they're not remembering
anything and
being tested on it.
They don't rub, they can't recall
anything. So I'm just,
I'm really, really worried about,
you know that
part of it, the, the, and what's
going to happen to, to my kids,
our kids.
Going forward in our ability to
have conversations,
to reason, to think, to have
debates, to present
arguments, to support your
arguments,
organize your thoughts.
That's where I'm, that's
the real human piece of all of this.
Well, that's kind of the question is
what's the purpose?
I mean, does the machine serve
the person or the person serve the
machine? I think you could make a
strong case.
I think most people would make the
case that for all the benefits of
the internet over the last 30 years,
it's been a net loss for humanity.
We don't live in a more peaceful
world.
We don't live in more stable world
and we don't in a smarter world,
a wiser world, we don't and
probably many reasons for that, but
the internet hasn't achieved
its core promises.
Peace, stability, knowledge, wisdom.
That didn't work.
So knowing that,
why would you triple down on
the effect with AI?
And of course you wouldn't if the
goal was to serve
people.
And you really do detect when you
listen to technologists speak,
that their orientation is totally
different.
Like it's like, we have an
obligation.
To serve technology, no one
ever explains why.
I guess because it's a god, maybe
the only god.
And so whether that means higher
energy prices or less water
or dumber, more suicidal
children or whatever the result kind
of inevitably will be, that's
the price you pay to serve the
machine. And it's like, that
seems backward to me.
It absolutely does.
And I, you know, just sitting here
thinking, as you're saying that,
like, have we had a net positive
with the internet?
And it's, it's hard to, it' hard to
argue that we have in any
appreciable way.
We're sitting in a, in a third world
war right now.
Um, think about
how the internet moves markets and
creates incredible, uh,
anxiety.
You hear this sort of like palpable
feeling of anxiety across the United
States.
I think largely you could blame that
on the internet.
When people jump on X or
jump on social media and they're fed
these dopamine hits of 15
second videos and
they just like, why did I do that to
myself?
You feel sort of transported.
Just getting sucked into
voyeuristic content with people
getting arrested or whatever it is,
it just, it makes you feel awful.
And I don't think that there's You
have influencers on escalators like
filming themselves and like,
what?
This is what we want, like, you
know, this, that's why I'm
encouraged at the younger people are
saying, I don't want a smartphone
anymore.
Um, the internet and smartphones,
I think you could combine them and
then add in this like AI layer on
top of it. And you're just
constantly online.
So I don't know, I think you're
going to see, maybe you're
going to start to see more Amish
communities pop up.
You know, you're gonna start to see
like a pushback sort of
internet free zones.
Um, you know, do not bring your
phones in here.
I don't know how.
I don't know how big those things
will be. And I don't know what kind
of pushback we'll have from,
uh, from people who've gone through
it, will we have sort
of a moment where we
all say enough is enough?
We don't want this anymore.
Um, there are the arguments.
Well, maybe we shouldn't be
connected in such a way to these,
these AI models that
are coming from China, that are from
the United States that are coming,
from open AI,
Anthropic, et cetera, get
open source models that You can then
store. Like on your own
compute in your own house.
That is, so you have like all
of the wisdom self-contained.
Um, and I know there are like some
libertarian friends of mine who
believe that that's the way to go is
like you have, you have all of this
compute sort of living, I don't
want to say like Hillary Clinton's
style on your own servers in your
house, but you're not relying on
China, you're not relying, on the
government, you are not relying
these companies.
You're relying on yourself.
And if you want to do some deep
research on a project, you have
access to it because it lives on
your own server in your house,
disconnected from those people.
I don't know. I don't have that.
Without getting too far afield,
however, I think one of the biggest
things that's happened in technology
in recent memory was
the hacking of cold wallets and
the theft of Bitcoin from cold
wallats. And the promise of a cold
wallet was it was disconnected from
the internet.
It was wholly yours.
No one could put a finger on it
other than you.
And that was the assurance
that your Bitcoin was actually
yours. And to see
that get hacked somehow.
Suggests that anything with
an electrical impulse is not really
under your control.
Well, we even saw the story was it
three weeks ago about the
AI model that was offline,
it was not even connected to the
internet and managed
to somehow connect
and get all and hack,
jump online to, to hack and then
jump back offline.
Right.
Uh, and so,
and then add in the robotics layer
to this on top of it all.
Right. So the humanoid,
the, the human robot piece of
this where You know,
you're going to have this, you are
going to have this in warfare.
You're going have humanoid robots.
I mean, it's straight, it literally
is straight out of Terminator.
Yep. Um, you know, this is
what's coming. Um, and who
can stop it? Is there going to be
some sort of a kill switch and the
ability to turn this stuff off?
I don't think so.
So,
I don't know, we're going build
compounds with, you know,
corrugated I don't know,
steel walls and turrets
on our houses now to protect us
against the, the coming AI robot
invasion.
But we're seeing it on the
battlefield already, and
we already know that the U.S.
Military is years ahead on this
planning for where this is going.
So I don't know.
To me, this is the greatest,
most bizarre,
and biggest transformation in human
history that we're watching right
now unfold before us.
Yep.
I mean, I hate to say it,
a lot of flawed people with
true ideas out there, but Ted
Kaczynski did call this
30 years ago.
And because he was crazy and violent
and killed innocents, we ignored it,
but we shouldn't have,
because he, you know, he was onto
something, I would say.
Claymores, thank you for that really
informed and kind of amazing
rundown of where we're going.
I'm grateful.
My pleasure, it's scary.
Let's hang out and have a human
conversation without AI.
I can't wait.
Great to see you.
Thanks. Thanks, man.