Utah is likely to approve construction of a massive “hyperscale” data center to help facilitate the processing of data for AI applications.

It’s an awful idea.

I say that not because there’s anything wrong about the benefits its investors promise: More energy, water desalinization, and tax dollars for Utah to use for other purposes. It’s because nowhere is there even a mention of the costs, both direct and indirect, of moving our society closer to complete dependence on AI.

Sure, there’s mention of China and its supposed AI intentions, but it’s blunt saber-rattling masquerading as rational argument. “The other guy was going it” is not a convincing reason for breaking the law.

Such projects are an example of the “buy now, pay later” principle: Build some huge thing that’ll be impossible to turn off when it’s turned on — because its investors need to recoup their dollars and its AI users need to consume its data — and we’ll worry about what it does to our lives sometime thereafter.

Jobs lost. Economies changed. Politics influenced. Culture morphed. Individual lives forever impacted.

The legislators in Utah aren’t even asking these questions, let alone trying to answer them. Maybe they’re betting that they’ll all have died before their constituents will demand answers.