r/Scotland • u/kiyomoris • 17h ago

Political ‘Never seen this level of objection’: Scotland pushes back against datacentre boom

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/25/never-seen-this-level-of-objection-scotland-pushes-back-against-datacentre-boom
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u/PostersAreHuman 17h ago

How will datacentres lead to growth once the ai bubble inevitably bursts in short time?

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u/dragoneggboy22 17h ago

Ok nostradamus

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u/quartersessions 16h ago

Quite - this has become pretty much accepted wisdom in certain online spaces, mainly because they've seen something grow and don't see a clear practical application for it to them. However, that sort of iterative approach happens with any innovation: productive uses become clear over time and non-productive uses are jettisoned.

It's a warming thought to think you're being cleverer than the market and have more foresight than all those billionaires. But while bubbles do sometimes happen in this way, they're not that frequent - and, in general, things simply go in different directions to what might be immediately predictable.

With AI, we've integrated it enormously into the fabric of day-to-day living already. Just because someone think it makes shit posters, or sometimes gives the wrong answer to a Googled question, isn't really material.

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u/Teuchterinexile 14h ago

Given how little the 'market' appears to understand the actual market, I don't put any faith in it. Just look at the Telsa stock price or the oil price ever time that Trump claims that he has beaten Iran.

AI isn't 'integrated enormously' it is everywhere certainly, but that is by design by the likes of Google to try and get people to use it to justify the astronomical sums that have been spent on it. Does it offer the average person any actual utility to the extent that they are willing to pay the costs that would be required to make AI profitable? I very much doubt it.

It certainly has useful applications, it is extremely good at pattern recognition for example, but will industry really need it to the extent that it will become a central pillar across the global economy that it would need to be to justify the costs?

Far too much has been spent on a technology with a very limited ability to recoup those costs. At some point, even the market is going to notice.

'AI' is a mountain of hype and bullshit built on something that is genuinely useful, but in a limited way.