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FridAI Datacenter Bashing + AI is Non-Binary · Business Brain – The Entrepreneurs’ Podcast

• 0:00
  Dave Hamilton: Business Brain, episode 761 for Casual Friday AI, June 12th,
• 0:10
  Dave Hamilton: which is National Button Battery Awareness Day, 2026.
• 0:15
  Shannon Jean: Wait, what?
• 0:17
  Dave Hamilton: You know, the little button batteries, like a CR2032.
• 0:21
  Shannon Jean: Yes, exactly.
• 0:22
  Dave Hamilton: Right? Like the tiny little button batteries.
• 0:24
  Shannon Jean: Yes. I was like, wait, what button batteries are we talking about here?
• 0:28
  Shannon Jean: Button batteries. Awareness day, like a safety thing? Is that you think of this or something?
• 0:31
  Dave Hamilton: That's actually, oh, that's a good question. Is it a safety thing?
• 0:34
  Shannon Jean: Because little kids swallow them or some of them don't work in your air?
• 0:38
  Dave Hamilton: Yes, that's exactly. Yeah, some of them don't work in your air tag.
• 0:42
  Dave Hamilton: You know why they don't work in your air tags? Why? It's because people will
• 0:46
  Dave Hamilton: swallow them. And yes, National Button Battery Awareness Day,
• 0:49
  Dave Hamilton: it was created because of the hazards with children's swallowing, which is very bad.
• 0:54
  Dave Hamilton: And so what they have done to help mitigate that is they put a bad tasting compound on them.
• 1:05
  Dave Hamilton: And that is what keeps them out of children's mouths.
• 1:08
  Shannon Jean: It all makes sense now.
• 1:09
  Dave Hamilton: It all makes sense. Like that little coating for some reason doesn't work in
• 1:14
  Dave Hamilton: an AirTag. So you just take a knife or something and scrape off the coating. Scrape it.
• 1:18
  Dave Hamilton: Now, be aware that you are taking metal against metal on a battery,
• 1:23
  Dave Hamilton: and they are lithium batteries.
• 1:25
  Shannon Jean: I just bought the one that said AirTag compatible.
• 1:27
  Dave Hamilton: Right. And they are lithium batteries that can go high order,
• 1:30
  Dave Hamilton: and you're creating heat with friction while you're digging into this battery. Yes, yes, yes.
• 1:34
  Dave Hamilton: So do all of this with that knowledge, eyes wide open.
• 1:37
  Shannon Jean: But yes, that's right. Okay. That's pretty good. That's pretty good.
• 1:40
  Dave Hamilton: Sounds crazy. Are button batteries enough to run data centers, Shannon?
• 1:43
  Shannon Jean: Hey, maybe. Not quite there. But I want to talk about a couple things.
• 1:48
  Shannon Jean: I want to talk about data centers and I want to talk about AI as well.
• 1:51
  Shannon Jean: There's been some news out there where,
• 1:55
  Shannon Jean: people giving commencement speeches and when they bring up AI,
• 1:59
  Shannon Jean: they're getting booed and different things. And a lot of, as well,
• 2:04
  Shannon Jean: a ton of negative press about data centers.
• 2:10
  Shannon Jean: I was like, well, this is interesting. So I decided to look into it a little
• 2:13
  Shannon Jean: bit more. It's like, well, what is this? I know there's massive energy.
• 2:16
  Dave Hamilton: We had people protesting against a data center that was planned.
• 2:21
  Dave Hamilton: Well, they were thinking about, they were exploring the idea of putting one in not too far from me.
• 2:27
  Dave Hamilton: And I think they did away with that idea. So, yeah.
• 2:32
  Shannon Jean: So, yeah. So I'm looking at this. There's some stuff going up around Tahoe and
• 2:37
  Shannon Jean: Nevada because there's a bunch of data center stuff out there.
• 2:39
  Shannon Jean: Different energy things and i came across something i found very interesting it wasn't just that,
• 2:46
  Shannon Jean: um okay they use a lot of water for cooling and they use a lot of obviously
• 2:50
  Shannon Jean: a ton of energy yep and then there's some federal government stuff going on
• 2:55
  Shannon Jean: where it's like hey they have to i forget the phrasing they use but they had to be,
• 3:00
  Shannon Jean: basically even you know okay we're going to set this law where if you build
• 3:06
  Shannon Jean: a data center you have to bring bring your own infrastructure is what they were calling it.
• 3:11
  Dave Hamilton: You're on electricity and everything.
• 3:13
  Shannon Jean: Everything, yeah. Okay. You can't just build it and suck off the,
• 3:17
  Shannon Jean: you know, whatever's there, because it wasn't built.
• 3:19
  Dave Hamilton: To do that. It wasn't built to support that, right? Yeah, of course.
• 3:21
  Shannon Jean: It wasn't built to support that. So I thought that was kind of interesting.
• 3:23
  Shannon Jean: But the one thing I found fascinating that I've been reading some articles about,
• 3:28
  Shannon Jean: listening to a couple of podcasts was that,
• 3:31
  Shannon Jean: If you dig and scratch the surface behind a lot, or I shouldn't say a lot,
• 3:36
  Shannon Jean: I gotta be careful, behind some of these organizations that are very anti-data
• 3:41
  Shannon Jean: center, and maybe you could say AI,
• 3:44
  Shannon Jean: is that if you look where their funding is coming from, is a lot of it was coming from other countries.
• 3:50
  Shannon Jean: And in particular, China.
• 3:53
  Dave Hamilton: Oh, yeah. Right? Data center capital of the world, yeah.
• 3:56
  Shannon Jean: Correct. And so this thought is that, hey, these are our competitors are stirring
• 4:06
  Shannon Jean: up this pot of you don't want a data center, they're evil, AI is bad.
• 4:11
  Shannon Jean: It's gonna steal all the jobs, all this kind of stuff. And I thought that's
• 4:16
  Shannon Jean: pretty fascinating. And they had some, you know,
• 4:20
  Shannon Jean: You could see ties from this organization or this NGO is taking money from China, yada, yada, yada.
• 4:26
  Shannon Jean: And I thought that was fascinating. And I think, yeah.
• 4:30
  Dave Hamilton: It makes sense. I mean, yeah, my guess it's competitive. Oh,
• 4:34
  Dave Hamilton: I think it totally makes sense. I mean, we we do this.
• 4:38
  Dave Hamilton: We I'm not saying you and me. Yes. Or maybe not even anybody listening.
• 4:42
  Dave Hamilton: But we as a as as society, we do this kind of thing all the time.
• 4:47
  Dave Hamilton: We like lobbyists exist.
• 4:49
  Shannon Jean: Exactly. it's another type of.
• 4:50
  Dave Hamilton: Lobby it's it's all this is right and it in and and they exist
• 4:54
  Dave Hamilton: by by putting pressure on uh or it trying to incentivize or however they can
• 5:01
  Dave Hamilton: people in power and also just the masses with news stories and things like that
• 5:05
  Dave Hamilton: yes this is this is lobbying 101 if that's what's not some and i'm
• 5:10
  Shannon Jean: It's it it's not some nefarious no conspiracy theory it's it is like you're right is lobbying.
• 5:17
  Dave Hamilton: I'm sure this is happening. It makes sense that this is happening.
• 5:20
  Dave Hamilton: I can't be sure that this is happening, but it makes sense that this is happening. I also think
• 5:26
  Dave Hamilton: that it's not the only thing that's creating the anti-data center sentiment.
• 5:30
  Dave Hamilton: There's other reasons and some more valid than others.
• 5:34
  Shannon Jean: If they show up and they don't... Yeah, that's why I think this...
• 5:37
  Shannon Jean: B-Y-O-I, bring your own infrastructure, that it seems to solve,
• 5:42
  Shannon Jean: as long as it's, I don't know, whatever it says, as long as they have enough
• 5:46
  Shannon Jean: land or whatever, natural resources or whatever.
• 5:50
  Shannon Jean: But if they were to bring their own infrastructure and upgrade things along
• 5:56
  Shannon Jean: the way to make it better, I don't see the issue with it.
• 6:01
  Shannon Jean: But um that's why i think one of the things we've talked a lot about especially
• 6:05
  Shannon Jean: elon talking about doing it in space right because there's infinite space and
• 6:11
  Shannon Jean: there's not as much cooling issues and you've got the sun and so there's.
• 6:15
  Dave Hamilton: Some energy you can harness
• 6:16
  Shannon Jean: Yeah ton of energy there oh.
• 6:18
  Dave Hamilton: Yeah that's true i my thought it actually wrote down as you were like um i say
• 6:22
  Dave Hamilton: wrote down it's i didn't write it down i typed it but uh
• 6:26
  Dave Hamilton: i it is you know underwater data centers like yeah why not like i don't i don't
• 6:31
  Dave Hamilton: know like even using the waves like i don't
• 6:34
  Shannon Jean: The waves to the currents to generate uh energy yeah could be could be fascinating
• 6:39
  Shannon Jean: uh it's kind of interesting,
• 6:41
  Shannon Jean: my my take on that is that if um if we don't do it another country is going
• 6:49
  Shannon Jean: to do it and in order to be competitive and also in order to ensure our,
• 6:57
  Shannon Jean: you know, economy and our safety in some measures, we need to have that stuff here.
• 7:02
  Shannon Jean: And, you know, it's the same conversation I have with people who are concerned
• 7:05
  Shannon Jean: about AI is I, we, and we've said it here, it's like AI is not going to put
• 7:10
  Shannon Jean: you out of business or take your job. Someone who uses AI is going to do that.
• 7:15
  Shannon Jean: So you, you, you should embrace it and learn as much as you can about it.
• 7:20
  Shannon Jean: So you could be ready. Yeah. Adjust.
• 7:23
  Dave Hamilton: I agree. you know i agree yeah yep yeah interesting ah it's like it's a good um
• 7:30
  Dave Hamilton: Yeah. Huh. All right. Well, that's where we are.
• 7:34
  Shannon Jean: It's, you know, let us know what you think. Feedback at businessbrain.show.
• 7:37
  Shannon Jean: If you think it's crazy to other
• 7:39
  Shannon Jean: countries are actually spending money on campaigns and social media and,
• 7:43
  Shannon Jean: you know, funding NGOs to go out and push this anti-AI and anti-data center
• 7:49
  Shannon Jean: message, I'd love to hear it. Yep.
• 7:51
  Dave Hamilton: Yep. Let us know. Feedback at businessbrain.show. All right.
• 7:53
  Dave Hamilton: We have, we have other AI things to talk about.
• 7:57
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• 9:41
  Dave Hamilton: Shannon, I have another topic that kind of fits with yours, the sentiment,
• 9:46
  Dave Hamilton: the anti-AI sentiment. Okay. I mean, I think that's kind of what we were talking
• 9:50
  Dave Hamilton: about earlier in one way, and I have another way of talking about it.
• 9:54
  Dave Hamilton: There are people who, for very valid reasons—
• 10:00
  Dave Hamilton: are against using ai for a specific task uh
• 10:07
  Dave Hamilton: i i just okay we did an episode last week on gig gab all about ai and you know
• 10:12
  Dave Hamilton: it was it was with the through the lens of musicians right sure and so it like
• 10:18
  Dave Hamilton: there there are parts of the the creative process that
• 10:21
  Dave Hamilton: might be better like with a human creating it right and there's an argument
• 10:26
  Dave Hamilton: to be made there a very good argument yeah a
• 10:27
  Shannon Jean: Lot a lot A lot of people in the arts that are concerned about AI. Yeah.
• 10:30
  Dave Hamilton: And like for songwriters who say I think songs should be, for example,
• 10:35
  Dave Hamilton: songwriters are one group or people, whether or not you're a songwriter, it doesn't matter.
• 10:40
  Dave Hamilton: There are people who feel very strongly that songwriting should be left to humans and not to AI.
• 10:46
  Dave Hamilton: And my answer to that, I love this stuff because the audience for songwriting
• 10:51
  Dave Hamilton: is other humans, regardless of whether AI creates it or a human creates it.
• 10:56
  Dave Hamilton: Right. Yes. The intended audience is other humans.
• 10:58
  Dave Hamilton: That's the same with paintings. That's the same with most art,
• 11:03
  Dave Hamilton: right? Art is built for humans to experience. I don't want to say enjoy because
• 11:08
  Dave Hamilton: some art isn't meant to be enjoyed. It's meant to make you think and maybe not be enjoyable.
• 11:12
  Dave Hamilton: Yes, right. Exactly. And that's okay.
• 11:15
  Dave Hamilton: And so what I love is that we humans are the metric of that.
• 11:19
  Dave Hamilton: Like, so you could take an AI song and a human song.
• 11:22
  Dave Hamilton: And, you know, if a group of humans likes the AI song, well, then that's okay.
• 11:26
  Dave Hamilton: Like for them that's okay as long as they know it's an AI I guess as long as
• 11:30
  Dave Hamilton: they know it's an AI there's a conversation to be had but let's say
• 11:34
  Dave Hamilton: Let's say that's a different conversation it's a good one yes it is I want to
• 11:39
  Dave Hamilton: stay on point here so because I'm already off but
• 11:42
  Dave Hamilton: let's say you are someone who is against AI writing songs great fine understood
• 11:51
  Dave Hamilton: heard we all get to make those choices for ourselves
• 11:56
  Dave Hamilton: My plea to you is,
• 11:59
  Dave Hamilton: Don't let that sour you on AI in general.
• 12:06
  Shannon Jean: Oh, yeah. Yes.
• 12:08
  Dave Hamilton: Don't let that sour you.
• 12:10
  Shannon Jean: Damn, it totally makes sense.
• 12:11
  Dave Hamilton: Like, the AI is, here's a headline, AI is non-binary.
• 12:19
  Dave Hamilton: And by that I mean, don't treat it as a thing that you either use for everything
• 12:24
  Dave Hamilton: or don't use for anything.
• 12:25
  Shannon Jean: It's not black and white, right?
• 12:26
  Dave Hamilton: No. Oh, well, that's, yeah, I mean, that's non-binary, right?
• 12:29
  Dave Hamilton: Like, that's what that term means. It's, it's, it don't just,
• 12:34
  Dave Hamilton: like, there are nuances to this and there are a million different ways to use
• 12:37
  Dave Hamilton: AI. I mean, every single week we talk, this is the first episode.
• 12:42
  Dave Hamilton: A friday i episode in a long time where we haven't given at least not yet the
• 12:46
  Dave Hamilton: episode's not over but we haven't given like actionable ai advice we're simply
• 12:49
  Dave Hamilton: reacting to the the anti-ai sentiment
• 12:53
  Dave Hamilton: but otherwise literally every other friday i episode for the last what six eight
• 12:57
  Dave Hamilton: months has been actionable things different types of things that you can do with ai
• 13:03
  Dave Hamilton: and so like there's lots of stuff and i like i don't like for for our theme
• 13:09
  Dave Hamilton: song that was written by ai i mean it was it It was AI assisted, you know.
• 13:13
  Shannon Jean: Yeah, well, that's a good point. It's AI, you even assistive intelligence,
• 13:19
  Shannon Jean: right? Is that what you said last time? Yeah.
• 13:21
  Shannon Jean: And yeah, I think that is spot on. And if you just put blinders on,
• 13:26
  Shannon Jean: I'm not gonna use it because I don't like it, what it does in music,
• 13:29
  Shannon Jean: or I don't want them to use it in the movies, or I don't want,
• 13:32
  Shannon Jean: you know, that's fine. Yeah.
• 13:35
  Shannon Jean: It's, to me, that's like saying, well, I don't listen to music because I don't
• 13:38
  Shannon Jean: like Taylor Swift. I mean, that's ridiculous, right?
• 13:41
  Shannon Jean: Right, right. And so you should be able to discern, well, I enjoy the use of this.
• 13:50
  Shannon Jean: It's just like the internet. Well, I find it very useful in these areas. Yes.
• 13:56
  Shannon Jean: These areas I don't like, and these areas freak me out or disturb me.
• 14:00
  Shannon Jean: So I don't, you know, I'm not involved in that, but I'm over here.
• 14:03
  Shannon Jean: I'm not just gonna unplug myself because it exists. And I think that's something
• 14:07
  Shannon Jean: that all of us have to grapple with.
• 14:11
  Shannon Jean: Using this technology. But if you look back over hundreds and hundreds of years of history,
• 14:19
  Shannon Jean: And almost every, just about every technological advancement has lifted up society
• 14:26
  Shannon Jean: in so many ways, you know, with the mortality rate, the productivity rate,
• 14:32
  Shannon Jean: the employment rate, you know, like,
• 14:35
  Shannon Jean: at some point, not too long in our past, you know,
• 14:38
  Shannon Jean: the vast majority of the world lived in abject poverty, like brutal poverty.
• 14:44
  Shannon Jean: And now it's like below 10% because of things like the Industrial Revolution
• 14:48
  Shannon Jean: and all these other things.
• 14:49
  Shannon Jean: So, and yes, there was massive displacement and all that kind of stuff,
• 14:52
  Shannon Jean: but just because you, I mean, you have to learn to manage it.
• 14:57
  Shannon Jean: And like there's child labor laws, right? Because we don't want kids working
• 15:00
  Shannon Jean: in factories anymore. So, of course, you'll have to, you know,
• 15:07
  Shannon Jean: there'll have to be some guardrails here, I think, with AI, but you got to be careful about that too.
• 15:11
  Dave Hamilton: But that's a good topic. I think, yeah, no, I think guardrails are a good thing.
• 15:17
  Dave Hamilton: I think we will, we, we don't, we, at this point, I don't, well,
• 15:20
  Dave Hamilton: it's a different conversation. I don't think we know enough.
• 15:22
  Shannon Jean: I'm adding it to our list to.
• 15:23
  Dave Hamilton: Talk about it. Please put it, please add it to the list. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:26
  Shannon Jean: Because I think there's some positive and negative to that based on what size company you are.
• 15:32
  Dave Hamilton: Well, as with any regulation, I think that's true. Yes.
• 15:36
  Shannon Jean: Well, the big companies often like the regulation because it keeps the little
• 15:39
  Shannon Jean: companies out. I think we're seeing some of that.
• 15:42
  Dave Hamilton: It becomes a,
• 15:46
  Dave Hamilton: what's the right term? It's a way of gatekeeping, right? Yeah, that's correct.
• 15:50
  Shannon Jean: Yeah, I would love your take on it. You know, what do you think the big takeaway is today, Dave?
• 15:57
  Dave Hamilton: Wow. I mean, I'm looking here to make sure I don't go with recency bias of the
• 16:02
  Dave Hamilton: last thing we talked about.
• 16:04
  Dave Hamilton: But I think, even looking, I think the big takeaway from this episode is find
• 16:11
  Dave Hamilton: ways where it makes sense for you to use the power of AI.
• 16:17
  Dave Hamilton: To benefit from the use of AI. Find ways for your business.
• 16:22
  Shannon Jean: Yeah, I agree. I think that's great. Um, yeah. And you don't have to agree with
• 16:28
  Shannon Jean: every use of it to make it useful to you.
• 16:32
  Dave Hamilton: Yeah. Even if you only use it for one thing, like that's going to be better.
• 16:37
  Dave Hamilton: And then the great part about that is it frees your time and your mental energy
• 16:43
  Dave Hamilton: up to do the things that you want to do as a, so find the grunt work.
• 16:49
  Dave Hamilton: Yeah. Like that's the, maybe that's the takeaway is find the grunt group and
• 16:52
  Dave Hamilton: have the AI do that so that you can do the things that are important to you
• 16:58
  Shannon Jean: Totally makes sense yeah.
• 16:59
  Dave Hamilton: Why not why not yeah thanks for hanging out folks this has been uh
• 17:04
  Dave Hamilton: enlightening we love being able to do this feedback at businessbrain.show and
• 17:09
  Dave Hamilton: uh also visit businessbrain.show slash review and leave us a review this weekend
• 17:14
  Dave Hamilton: would you love that please have a great weekend
• 17:16
  Shannon Jean: To hear it.
• 17:17
  Dave Hamilton: And uh keep living that charm life huh see ya