- cross-posted to:
- fuck_ai@lemmy.world
- technology@lemmy.zip
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- fuck_ai@lemmy.world
- technology@lemmy.zip
- technology@lemmy.world
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There’s a local council in my community that is gunning for an AI data center in my county. People are livid, but I don’t think it’s going to be enough to stop the construction. It’s shady as fuck with hidden shareholders that nobody will reveal.
I’m open to any and all suggestions on how to prevent this data center from being built. Peaceful ideas or otherwise.
When they come up with it on their own, and push it relentlessly despite obvious and enormous resistance from the citizens, you know they been paid off handsomely.
they likely paid off the politicians before hand, remember janet mills in maine, she basically allowed one to be built and vetoed any measure to block it.
Is there any research on this?
Back in the 90s, there was a theory that living near power-lines was unhealthy, but later shown to be bunk. Also similar to “electro magnetic sensitivity” like Chuck in “Better Call Saul”. Does inaudible sound effect people’s health?
Lots of research has been done on this. But I would highly recommend watching the YouTube video that was posted by the top commenter instead of trying to dig through what’s out there.
Ultrasonic sounds (above 20 kHz) can cause physical symptoms in humans, particularly at high intensities ((>75\text{ dB})), including headaches, dizziness, nausea, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), and fatigue
Animal studies have demonstrated internal tissue alterations at specific frequencies and intensities
https://www.nature.com/nature-index/topics/l4/ultrasonic-exposure-effects-on-human-health
this is also used as weaponry
Yes, infrasound is a fairly well understood phenomenon. Loud noise at frequencies below 10 Hz isn’t commonly picked up by recording equipment but can induce things like anxiety, nausea, and sleep problems. While recently wind power plants have sometimes been accused of generating it, it’s also been caused by industrial fans and even resonance in a building’s ductwork.
It wouldn’t surprise me if a data center’s AC caused enough noise at frequencies not normally monitored to become an issue.
Pipelines also cause a resonance hum that some people CAN hear for miles, and it drives them batshit.
There’s a steam plant for my local hospital about 300m from my house. When I’m in my basement trying to record drums, I can audibly hear when the plant is running. Super low, sub-50hz hum. It gets into all my mics.
Fortunately my bedroom is on the second floor of the house so the resonance doesn’t keep me up at night.
In one case, apparently, the infranoise was at the right frequency to resonate with the eye and cause people to hallucinate. This was due to a fan in a basement, not an entire data center.
[citation needed]
I fully believe that at times infrasound can result in anxiety, nausea, etc. But, in 2026 so can reading the news. So can thinking that your health is being affected by a datacenter, resulting in you worrying and losing sleep.
This whole thing about the “resonant frequency of the eye” and that causing someone to hallucinate… that smells like utter BS. A much more likely explanation in a basement is carbon monoxide.
I believe the poster is referring to The Ghost in the Machine, Published in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol.62, No 851 April 1998 (pdf)
Ok, that’s a paper that attempts to explain the feeling that a building might be haunted. There’s nothing in there about causing people to hallucinate. They talk about the supposed “resonant frequency of the eye”, but then they say:
The resonant frequency is the natural frequency of an object, the one at which it needs the minimum input of energy to vibrate. As you can see from above, any frequency above 8 Hz will have an effect and some sources quote 40Hz
If the values are that vague, then there is no resonant frequency. There may be frequencies that transmit vibrations to the eye, but with a big enough speaker you can cause anything to vibrate.
The closest the get to hallucinations is to say that "the eyeball would be vibrating which would cause a serious “smearing"of vision. It would not seem unreasonable to see dark shadowy forms caused by something as innocent as the corner of V.T.’s spectacles.” So, no hallucinations, just some blurry vision that might vaguely count as an excuse for seeing a ghost if your eye is vibrating significantly. Notice that that’s all just speculation, saying “this seems like it could be possible” rather than actually testing for that hypothesis.
Anxiety, nausea and sleep problems can be caused by many things. One of those things is believing that a nearby datacenter is making you ill.
Sure, investigate it and see if it is actually happening. But, do a proper double-blind study.
I take this personally because my mother is a conspiracy nut who thinks that everything is making her ill: wifi, chemtrails, street lights, electricity, gluten… if she heard about infrasound she’d add it to the list of things that are hurting her health.
Infrasound isn’t some fringe conspiracy theory, it’s well-understood, and infrasound weapons are banned by the laws of warfare because they literally torture people to death and can cause internal bleeding.
The infrasound in this article is obviously less intense than a deliberately designed weapon, but it can still cause extreme discomfort, pain, illness, and stress.
You don’t need a double-blind study to determine if acoustic emissions are the culprit. You just need to measure specifically for infrasound (and ultrasound, for that matter). It’s an unusual form of pollution but very much measurable if you know to look for it.
Unlike the things you mentioned, infrasound is understood to be a thing these days and is sometimes considered in construction. It’s not exactly witchcraft; most equipment (including decibel meters) just isn’t built to account for very low frequencies.
If the data center does put out noise at very low frequencies that’s probably some kind of unintended resonance that they’ll have to stop. It might be as simple as slightly changing the RPMs of some cooling fans or installing sound proofing in specific places.
There is a lot of research on this. Exposure to this level of infrasound has negative effects on anxiety, the ability to sleep, and even cardiac function. Those who experience the level exposure associated with living close by to these datacenters can start to experience negative effects on their hearts ability to contract properly after as little as one hour. Take into account these people are exposed to this every hour, hour after hour, for years if not the rest of their natural lives.
Exposure to this level of infrasound
What level is that?
The article mentions 96 dB for 24 hours a day
There is a lot of research on this.
You provided none
I don’t recall being asked to. The question was “Is there any research on this?” And I answered the question lol.
Now that you’ve been made aware of the research done on this you can go look it up. Just Google “Infrasound NIH” and I’m sure you’ll figure it out from there.
Wind Turbines can also cause this kind of disturbance. I remember seeing something about a lawsuit over that.
Just because there was a lawsuit doesn’t make it true.
That’s right. Even if the person won the lawsuit it doesn’t mean the science is true. It’s one really frustrating thing about the legal system, sometimes people win lawsuits based on absolutely terrible BS science. A persuasive lawyer has to convince a jury that something is true, not convince a scientist who knows about that field.
just because one thing turned out not to be true, it doens’t automatically mean you don’t have to believe any other claims.
A lawsuit being filed doesn’t equal scientific or medical fact. You can file a lawsuit for literally anything.
Without concrete, peer reviewed studies, windmills causing health issues is just as believable as wifi causing health issues.
Funny how they look so flammable
My first thought was that Benn Jordan did a great bit of video journalism on this, but it’s already linked from the article, although without any other mention of it.
Dude is just a wealth of interesting videos.
Edit and speaking of which… He dropped this doozy today: https://youtu.be/lA8WuXDXfcI
He really is, I found him from his Flock videos and have since binge watched everything he’s made.
The music that he makes for the videos is a wonderful cherry on top of the great information and presentation.
He also has a huge backlog of music as The Flashbulb
Thanks, TIL
I’ve listened to him quite a lot in ~2010, then learned about his YouTube channel when it started popping off, but only recently made the connection that it’s the same person.
I went to look at his Wiki page now, and apparently he also released music as Acidwolf, Human Action Network, and FlexE. TIL as well!
Link for future readers:
Data centres are the new windmills?
Here’s a short video that goes into the specific and how this affects surrounding neighborhoods.
Datacenters Behaving Like Acoustic Weapons
The researchers he ‘cites’ in that video have said he misinterpreted their findings.
This whole blog seems extremely pro-AI and their entire site is full of articles supposedly debunking why data centers aren’t actually bad after all…
This specific article has some pretty crazy conclusions about Benn Jordan’s own double-blind study. They’re saying it wasn’t double blind because he might have noticed water shaking, but in the actual video he explicitly says he threw out any of the data points where he knew if the sound was on. The results seemed pretty conclusive to me.
The other thing is it talks a ton about wind turbine infrasound, and how dangerous levels are thousands of times louder. But the actual measured level of sound ARE thousands of times higher. Measurements have been taken at 96dB, which is significantly higher than the 50-75dB this article is referencing as safe. If the 96dB infrasound is loud enough to shake a glass of water as above, it’s not “imperceptible” like the safe levels.
As with all loud sounds in general, exposure time is a factor. A brief burst above 100dB won’t damage your hearing, but extended exposure will. I don’t see why the same wouldn’t apply to infrasound. All these studies are 72h or less of exposure, but there’s people living next to these datacenters 24/7.
Personally I’m waiting for more research to be done. There’s not enough data to be calling things fake or debunked here.
Writer pic is AI generated. It’s arguments are invalid.
That’s a logic error. The merit of what is said determines truth, not that you don’t like the author.
I remember when people complained about sound coming from wind turbines. That was bad
This? Good
It does matter if the complaints are real or fabricated, turns out. Research on that topic confirmed that wind turbines generate very little infrasound, further reduced by their great distance from the ground. The amounts in question are less than that generated by other ubiquitous machines, so it is very safe to conclude that those complaints are phony, advanced by enemies of alternative energy.
I can’t speak to the validity of these complaints, but there are a lot more motors running a lot faster in a data center than in a wind power generator, so it is at least plausible. The research will demonstrate if this complaint is valid or just more activism.
Just looked up, a windturbine has less infrasound then cars. (german Source) I would guess the datacenter could have more infrasound and thus be a bigger problem. They mention a study about windturbine infrasound and they point towards nocebo effect, but maybe windturbines are at a border where the health effects are very difficult to measure. So maybe studies about the infrasound of datacenters could find something. On the other hand, datacenters bring a lot more pollution factors, like light-, air- and waterpollution.
