OpenAI Announces Sora Closure - Disney's $1 Billion Deal in Limbo

parksandtravel9 days ago

Aside from the other negatives, who'd want to live next to this?

Disstevefan110 days ago

While I hate to see ALL of the cattle farms around me get converted to MASSIVE housing communities, even with the terrible traffic these will bring, I guess its better than data centers? Building these massive housing communities force road and various infrastructure improvements and greatly contribute to the tax base.

flynnibus11 days ago

The common trend around here is commercial development lagged in the late 90s and 2000s.. but what was hot? Residential. So what happens? You have a master plan that spells out all the zoning and long term vision for your area.. but that vision is fantasy due to what the market really is pushing for. Short term needs start making problems for long term plans. So what happens? Zoning exceptions and rezoning. Take commercial or industrial areas and allow residential development. Developers and politicans get rich converting land and building out residential. But what you end up with is booming social services costs.. traffic.. high housing costs.. taxes going up to pay for it all. Now comes the Datacenter wave... they offer high tax revenue, no traffic, no crime, no social services, and high income jobs. DCs start going in.. and where do they go? Commercial and Industrial areas. But wait.. 15 years ago you put all these houses in places they weren't intended to be... surrounded by areas slated for non-residential development. Now you have the "I have data centers right across the street!" situation.. mainly because your house probably shouldn't have been there in the first place. In many places DataCenters were not special zoning situations, so they could be built by-right in a lot of places where as neighbors they could be seen as less desirable - but it's by-right. Here's a fun example of the situation coming full circle... This neighborhood was allowed to be built during the commercial lull.. so residential literally surrounded by office/light industrial. Now the DC build out is so hot in that spot, the entire neighborhood is being offered to be bought out as a whole for over $4million per acre - https://www.insidenova.com/news/loudoun/report-ashburn-residents-being-offered-4m-per-acre-to-sell-to-data-center-developers/article_f35fe52d-6f85-4aab-af62-b1d3ce504791.html Here's the story of the CNG plant https://www.loudounnow.com/news/sterling-residents-raise-alarms-over-off-grid-data-center/article_3481d7fd-11ef-4948-a951-8c4ee6e69f2f.html They repeatedly talk about how close the residents are to the plant.. but fail to acknowledge those homes were built next to non-residential stuff to begin with... stuffing townhomes into small pockets of existing development. Housing was in such demand.. people would accept crappy locations because when they bought.. it wasn't fully crappy yet. Then get upset when their situation changes.. but don't accept they bought property that was in a bad spot to begin with. That's what desperation does...

HauntedPirate11 days ago

Oh, I know the problem here lies squarely within City Hall. :) I'm fairly certain there were some serious tax incentives floated as well. I'm not one of those "DC's are EVIL!!!1!!" people by any stretch, just that everything around the one proposed in my city stinks worse than a 2-week dead fish in a hot car.

flynnibus11 days ago

Well, as they say.. "that sounds like a you problem, not a me problem". If your town doesn't have the existing infrastructure, it is unlikely to be attractive to the DC companies to start with, meaning its only attractive because someone is hyper-extending themselves to make it attractive to them. That sounds like a bad deal by your local government.. not a data center problem. Is the government offering incentives? Deals like extending power, water capacity, etc.. the utilities don't do it for free, nor do they do it just because you ask for it or promise to pay your utility bill. The common complaint is "our utilities will go up because we have to pay for the extra capacity". This is really an incomplete picture typically... usually the topic muddying the water is programs to expand long term capacity which are needed to accomodate the future with the project in it.. vs the story which is usually "we need to build this for that". Where it's usually more broad.. which is "to fit the future with everyone in it.. it will need growth"... and those long term projects need to be funded by rates. It becomes a fight over long term infrastructure plans... should utilities build for growth, or should citizens force a cap on capacity. You want a picture of a real cluster.. here they developed a DC site knowing the power infrastructure is not ready.. so they were going to run on a CNG plant onsite to bridge the gap. Now, the electric utility is supposedly 3 years out.. so they were going to run the CNG onsite plant continuously for that 3 year period. The market is that lucrative they can do that and still make sense. Datacenters for sure are predatory in that they are going to go where the math makes the most sense for them... they owe no loyalties. But at the same time, they aren't going to go where the math DOESN'T work for them. So if things really are such a horrible fit... it likely has to do with what the government is doing to MAKE the math work for them. In our area it was an intersection of cheap power, access to the data highway, glut of dark fiber, and government incentives. But now as you become the largest datacenter market.. real estate in the spots becomes $$.. what was excess power is no longer excess.. and eventually the projects bleed out into less 'compatible' locations. Hillsborough cited in the video is popular for datacenters.. because... cheap power, access to the data highway, and government incentives. See the trend? :) People act like DCs are invading locusts.. they are actually just savvy shoppers. Willing to spend when the math works in their favor. Which makes them very easy to keep out if you really don't want them. But the truth is the governments do want them for their tax base.. which is why the programs are not excluding DCs.

HauntedPirate11 days ago

I can only speak for the data center proposed in my city. It's already being communicated that residential electricity rates will increase (40%, IIRC) if it's built. The city will have to build a new water tower to supply it with water. That's going to be billed to residents. The city has had to hire a full-time firefighter team (5-6 in total, I forget the exact number of people hired) vs the existing volunteer fire department. That's funded by property taxes. 40 full-time jobs once it's built. Not to mention the City Council approved the building being less than 250 feet from existing residential homes on a plot of land whose zoning designation was changed without public input and without a public hearing. Now, the city has many, many other problems it really is too late to address (past City Council's have rejected all kinds of commercial development in lieu of pushing people to "mom and pop shops" in their aging "downtown" area for the past 20 years, and there has been one net-new business in that timespan), but either the current City Council has done a horrible job of advertising the positives of the proposed data center or else... there are too few for them to make a dent in the negative public opinion around it.

flynnibus11 days ago

bleh... slant content. "Rents are up!" -- Because demand is good "people can't afford to live here!" -- Not a data center problem. They'd rather a market with no demand, and no work? Ok.. "Not creating jobs, they are moving jobs" -- Uhh.. they need actual demand to work. They left that other job for a reason. "They don't actually generate money" -- Distortion. They focus on the tax rebates and scare you with numbers.. but never once talk about NET new taxes.. instead spinning off to talking about false job claims. "I worked at a data center..." -- You worked as a contractor filling in junk positions. That's not the big picture Data Centers are not about JOB creation -- They are about TAX BASE Their advantage is huge tax base with minimal social costs (no school needs, health care, highways, etc). Unlike housing they generate huge business tax base.. and unlike housing they have very little local tax burden. Every community would love to have tons of booming commercial activity to drive their tax revenue.. and if they had it, they wouldn't be attractive to data centers in the first place. But reality is most places don't have that.. so that's why DCs are attractive to state and local governments.

parksandtravel11 days ago

Pizza Moon14 days ago

Exactly. Disney will always be about creative people first. AI is a secondary tool at Disney.

SamusAranX15 days ago

Skynet will read this thread, see its supporters, and still blow them to smithereens on Judgment Day 😉

Disstevefan116 days ago

I am praying to baby Jesus this BLOWS UP in Zuckerberg's face!!!! The bad thing is, it does not matter to Zuck, he has enough money to live multiple lifetimes like a vampire :mad: Maybe his AI can accidentally delete his 229B net worth. 🤞🤞🤞🤞

CoastalElite6416 days ago

CoastalElite6416 days ago

Mr. EngagementApr 03, 2026

This is a great post, and very well put, as usual. My thoughts (for conversation, not argument) : Businesspeople promote and sell their products. Without regulation, they will lie to do so. Anyone who stands to benefit from our adoption of a technology (of any kind) should not be blindly trusted. Everything here can also be applied to social media. All of these technologies can be harmful (especially to children). Though I'm an advocate of AI, I've tried to be honest about its shortcomings, failures, and dangers. I'll call AI "another tool," though it is a powerful and dangerous one. That's not to downplay the risks, but to empower humans to think/use it as a tool and to keep it in its place. Military applications of AI are morally wrong, in my opinion. All technology threatens what were considered to be "entry level" positions at the time of their introduction (eyeglasses, tractors, power tools, calculators, computers, etc.). Entry-level is being redefined. Proponents and opponents are parts of the "real" story of AI, but neither is the complete story.