The Adverse Health Consequences of Resource-Extractive AI Data Centers: Analyzing Technological Innovation and Rurality with University Students

Abstract

At the university level there is a plethora of AI workshops or webinars to attend. These conversations and learnings are largely directed toward critical and ethical uses of AI in the classroom and how and if we integrate AI into courses. Less talked about are the public health implications for communities, often with the very communities universities are embedded in. These large data centers, whose massive physical and environmental footprints are essential to developing and maintaining large language models like ChatGPT, produce many adverse health impacts for people living near these sites. As a public health professor teaching a seminar in Rural Health, I found it pertinent to bring this discussion into the classroom. Rural areas are prime real-estate for data centers, with large swaths of land. While AI companies like Meta and Amazon make huge profits, communities may suffer. This vital public health issue must be brought into the classroom along with studying communities that are resisting new proposed AI sites and/or shutting down already existing centers.