Techstrong Gang – October 1, 2024

Hey, everyone. Happy October to you. You know, when it comes to, uh, employees with AI skills, it seems the rabbit's got the gun.

What about copyrights in AI as usually we got a lot of AI to talk about, and, and then we're going to go deep to Ohio for a power play. All that, and more you are watching Textron Gang. Hey everyone, it's Alan Shimel for Techstrong, our first gang episode of October, and this is going to be a heck of a month.

We've got all kinds of, uh, stuff going on. I'm gonna be out in San Diego for the Qualys QSC, excited to see all my Qualis friends and app dev and security folks. I know we've got a number of tech field days.

Steve Foskett, who's here, he'll tell us about it. Um, and we also have a big DevOps experience, virtual event, uh, early in October. So a lot going on at Techstrong as well as a Tech Field Day and Futura and a lot of, uh, our sister companies.

So, really excited for October, but let's jump into today's Techstrong gang. We've got some great topics we're gonna cover, I teased in the opening, but let me tell you about our gang or let me introduce our gang members for today. Um, first of all, joining us from his new digs in Harrison, New York.

He's our Chief Content Officer. He is there just in time for baseball playoffs. What a coincidence.

Mike Ard. Hey Mike, how you doing? I'm doing well, and of course I have my priorities debt.

So yes, I am looking around for tickets. If anyone, if anyone wants to donate Yankee tickets, Mike's right there for you. Here's someone who probably won't be donating Yankee tickets 'cause he's a Red Sox fan, even though he's in Ohio, but he's also the founder and CEO of Tech Field Day and a steady gag member here on Mondays, the one and only Steven Foskett.

Hey, Steven, how are you? It's good to be here. And it is nice to see the guardians up there challenging the Yankees even if the Red Sox aren't Yeah, yeah, no.

Hey, the guardians, I, were they the second best, uh, in the AO mike, right? They they have a buy too. They were the second best, which as the blowup season matters.

Nothing. 'cause it's a whole new season. Well, no, but at Least they get By, they get a buy as the Yankees do, which means you can't lose in the first round.

It's a good thing. It's a good thing. But Steven, beyond baseball, you, you've been busy, right?

You guys just had, uh, was it an Nokia, uh, tech field day? Yeah, we did a special event with Nokia last week and, uh, videos for that are going up now. And then this week, uh, actually starting tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday, we've got AI Data Infrastructure Field Day with familiar gang members.

Kimberly and Stephen Dickens joining me. Uh, we've got some, some great presentations there on all the, the data under ai. Then, uh, you know, October 16th and 17th, we've got Security Field Day and we're gonna round out October 23rd and 24th with Cloud Field Day.

That's beautiful. Good stuff. And as usual, they'll all be available here on Textron tv as well as live, uh, streamed live on, uh, LinkedIn and available on the Tech Field day, uh, uh, YouTube channel as well, correct?

That's right. Yep. Very cool.

And then last, but certainly not least joining us, well, he's not last, he's last of the remote people, uh, our remote gang member for today. Uh, our CTO and our future of CTA. Mitch Ashley.

Hey, Mitch, how are you? Good to be here. Good to be here.

And I'm gonna be even more remote next week. I'll be joining you from Barcelona, where I'll be at Atlassian team 24 Europe. So check that out.

Well, I, I'm, I feel so bad for you, Mitch. I know, you know, it's a field trip. I just, you know, I'm not sure what I'll do there.

I'll just hang out and do something. So you do field trips without fake tech field days, Tech field days? Well, I'm also doing the security tech field days and it's coming up, but Tech, tech day, well, busy.

Don't mean to rebrand it. Tech Phil, we'll just call it tech, Tech Tech, you know, that's Tech, tech, tech, tech tech. All right.

Good stuff. He'll be presenting it. He'll be presenting in Spanish next week on the ship.

There we go. From the Amelia. Well, I wouldn't know for tap of Saturday night.

That's about as close as I got to Barcelona. But anyway, enjoy. And then I, forgive me, I, I left out my compadre here in, in our book of Raton headquarters.

She is our sustainability or sustainable it and green IT and all things green. Analyst and editor, the Bonnie Schneider. Hey Bonnie, welcome.

Great to have you here. Thanks, Alan. Alright, so we're holding down the fort, as I mentioned in in the kickoff, it seems the rabbit has the gun when it comes to, uh, a employees with some AI skills.

Mike, you wanna talk about this one? Yeah, there's a new report from the folks at DICE that, uh, did a little survey of folks who are getting AI skills. And the focus has always been on, you know, how many people are gonna lose their jobs and everything.

But turns out that the folks who are getting AI skills are out looking for new jobs. They generally plan to leave their employers, and they're basically, as soon as they get some skills, it's, uh, see you later. I wouldn't wanna be a kind of attitude.

Um, I guess Alan, when you look at this, the glass is, uh, sometimes half full and half empty. So, you know, your assessment hanger for employers, So Myas for employers, it's, it's the same old, same old, right? There's the, the, the constant give and take, uh, between when, when people, when people skill up and they become more valuable, either pay up or they're out.

I mean, that especially, and, and more so in tech than in any other industry. I know, right? Because in tech, for whatever reason, a lot of people, they don't, they don't ask for raises.

They just go and get another job instead, and they'll get a 20% or whatever raise, right? And that's probably more than the raise they'll get if they ask their employer for a raise. But look, this is, this is market dynamics, market economics at play, right?

If you're in demand, you, you've got the leverage. As I said, the rabbit has the gut in tech over the last year and a half, two years, quite frankly, there've been a lot of skilled people and some of them soft skilled, if you want to call it that, the marketing and product marketing and product management and so forth. But nevertheless, they haven't had the leverage and they've been getting slaughtered, right?

And not finding new jobs very quickly. And, and so turnabouts fair play, you, you know, you, that pendulum swings and whoever has the leverage uses it. So I'm, I'm not surprised to see this.

The question is how long will it last? And does it make up for the displacement of people losing jobs because of ai? Yeah.

Well, Ellen, if it's not DevOps, people are in demand, or the next thing, platform engineers or SREs or pick your security, whatever it is, we go through these cycles. And of course, the ramp up of investment in ai, um, really highlights. One of the issues around ai, especially with machine learning, is there's this dance that we go through and in releasing models into production.

And we just finished a study working with feature byte, uh, a company that works on the, kind of the productivity of how you do this. Uh, but it takes, it takes data engineers, it takes, uh, ai ML engineers, and it takes, uh, people who are domain experts and it's kind of its own process and cycle. And so you've gotta be a skilled data person.

You just don't take a class in data and kind of suddenly become a AI data engineer. So I think you've gotta add some base skills to work from, maybe it's from being development or being a DA data person regionally, but now it's not just AI skills, it's people who have those data skills to prepare data that can go into these models and be used, uh, uh, in a performance wise way. Yeah.

Steven, you've done a number of these, uh, tech field days are on AI and their other events. And I'm just curious, is AI really coming for people's jobs? Or is it somebody who has AI skills that's coming for your job?

Well, somebody who has AI skills is certainly coming for, uh, higher paycheck. That's, that's what we've seen. In fact, um, if you look closely at the delegates who've attended our AI Field Day events recently, you know, the delegates are made up of folks like us who jibber jabber, but also folks who actually do work.

And, um, the people who are actually doing the AI work have found themselves increasingly in demand to the point that literally, um, looking at some of the people that have come to Field Day recently, most of them have been able to write themselves a new check at a new company recently. Uh, we had a, a delegate actually just last week who switched to a new job because he built up such great AI skills. It's an incredible job opportunity for people.

But, you know, a a a as you point out in some of these, um, you know, articles that, that we've linked to here, uh, not everybody's taking advantage of that. Uh, I can understand why, I can understand why somebody might, uh, maybe not feel confident because it's kind of an old a a new world that they haven't explored. Or maybe, honestly, there's a lot of people saying that it's all hype and that it's gonna vanish soon.

So, you know, do you want to upskill in a, in a field that may not be here in a, in a few years, um, or, you know, maybe it's just that they haven't gotten around to it or don't have the resources to do it. But it is hardening to see companies offering training, even though, unfortunately, like I said, a lot of the employees, uh, take the training and then jump ship for a much bigger salary. 'cause like Alan said, that's the way that, uh, tech people have traditionally gotten a bigger salary move to a new job.

You know, it's interesting, a lot of the articles were saying these jobs are on the coast, but I think there's another possibility for an advantage for AI skilled employees that are on the coast, and maybe they are looking for something else, is to move somewhere else in the country where maybe their skillset is seen, where everyone in the coast, most people might be familiar with it, but I think they have a chance to stand out with those skills. Maybe Go going provincial, that's the, or just go, go to other that's going provincial, other Strategy companies, smaller ones, Right? Well, well, what you and you, so I was gonna comment on this too.

So to me, that's a return to normalcy, right? Mm-Hmm. Tech jobs available mainly on the coast, stop the presses, right?

This is, this is what we've grown up with over the last 30 years, right? But Bonnie, to your point, yeah, there's always those people who can, you know, hitch up their wagon and take their magic tricks on the road. And, and what is common in San Francisco or New York may be quite the novelty in Cleveland.

No, no disrespect to Cleveland, Steven. Um, and, and maybe we will see some of that, but the fact of the matter is, to me, again, this is a return to normalcy. We're gonna start hiring a lot of AI people, and they'll be concentrated on the coast where, where tech is traditionally concentrated and, you know, is, is the rest of the country one big AI flyover?

I don't know. I don't, I Dunno, Steven, you should rebut that since you were a representative of the flyover states here. I'm feeling good with those Yankees, guys.

I gotta tell you the truth. I gotta represent No, I, right. Here's the thing.

Here's the thing though. I think that there's an opportunity for AI in companies outside the traditional data center hubs. So if you look at the, yeah, the coastal jobs in Northern Virginia, in New York, in Boston, in San Francisco and la yeah, there's demand for AI in those places.

But let me tell you, we're seeing a lot of demand for AI outside of those traditional spaces, and not in the sort of hype, uh, let's build a bigger model kind of way. Um, you know, for example, a a good friend of mine, um, worked at a, uh, t-shirt company, and he learned AI as a way to develop, uh, better, uh, processes to serve customers, have them help them design, uh, better t-shirts, better logos, et cetera. And, and like I said, I mean, basically that experience led him to becoming a real force in ai.

Um, you know, another, uh, another friend of mine, uh, works for a, a restaurant and they're using AI internally to, uh, help, uh, streamline operations. I know another guy who's working for a greenhouse in Canada. He's one of the biggest names in, uh, in sort of the ai, uh, punditry.

And, uh, and he's in Canada. There's a lot of applications for this stuff outside those traditional, traditional, uh, areas. And I think the difference is that if you're focused on sort of, uh, the, the foundational aspects of building models and, and, and, and then you're gonna be working for the big hyperscalers, the big people who can afford AI and they're concentrated on the coast, sure.

But if you're working for someone who's actually using AI for a productive purpose, then you could be anywhere. And frankly, this is my call out to anybody listening to this. If you're working at a company that does a thing, basically in any industry, if you can learn to apply some of these AI tools, especially now that there's so many open source tools that are widely available, you can basically write your check.

I, I'm not sure I like the rabbit and gun metaphor, but, uh, but I, but I like the, uh, employer writing or employee writing their own check metaphor. Better. That was good.

Some Elmer Fudd and Bugs money picture there, those cartoons, you know, so, so let me also, as a higher altitude flyover state, let me, let me put it to you this way. It, here's what's different about this is data doesn't just live in the tech companies. Data lives in the insurance companies, the manufacturing companies, the financial companies, the things that are spread out all through the us, through the US and, and everywhere.

And yes, there's a higher concentration of businesses on the coast, but there's a lot of companies who are creating data that they can use, not just in generative AI and LLMs and the fancy stuff, but the kind of bread and butter AI models and machine learning, uh, that is all fueled by data. Data is the, is the oil, if you will, of, of ai. And, uh, if you're a data engineer, you can, I think you can work in any industry practically and not have to move to the coast or be on the coast and not have to move anywhere else.

Just, uh, work for whoever you want. All right? That's the world we're In.

Don't, don't get Alan going about remote work. But, um, Al let me ask you this, because we've seen this, it's, it's sometimes challenging to get people to start using these tools and for whatever reason, you know, they, um, it's like a mental block is all I can establish it to or attribute it to because, well, No, pe-people are always resistant to change. And, you know, and look, there's gonna be a segment of people who say, I'm not doing that 'cause it's gonna take my job away.

Then there's going to be a segment of people who say, you know, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Um, and they're just resistant to change. And then there's gonna be people who look at it and say, Hey, you know what?

This could be a whole new gig for me, man. And, and I think that's an important, uh, distinction to make here. It's not, Steven, to your point, it's not the T-shirt guy who says the heck with it.

I don't want to do T-shirts no more. I'm gonna be an AI prompt engineer and move to the coast, or where it made me stay here. No, it's the T-shirt guy who says, I'm gonna be a better t-shirt guy by leveraging ai.

And I think, you know, the whole notion of AI professionals, well, what the hell is an AI professional? Was he a professional before ai? You know, and, and, and I would, I would question that anybody, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure that the people who we call professionals are professionals because well, who got a certificate certifying that they're a professional. Most of these folks, I give you a certificate, They're being $35, They're being paid. It's not amateur free.

So that gives the permission. No, Brenda, you wanna know the truth. I, I think for a lot of folks who are AI experts, it is amateur night.

We, I don't think we've quite gotten to the AI professional evolutionary stage here. And I, I, and I, I'm not quite sure when we will either. I disagree with that.

There are definitely AI professionals, people who have, you know, spent their career. Maybe it's a five year career, a 10 year career working in ai. Is it commonplace?

No. And I think I, I would add another persona to your, to your characterization of people who might adopt, and that is kinda the early adopters who say, I don't know if it's gonna take my job away or not, but I wanna learn this keep right, Because I'm, I'm a cool kid and that's your typical, Maybe you prevent my job from going away by doing the next thing, right? No, That's your typical early adopter profile.

I wanna be the cool kid on the block, right? That pioneer kinda learner. Yeah.

But again, I, you know, I think the T-shirt guy remains a T-shirt guy. And the, and the, you know, this is what, what they do and, and they just leverage ai. Anyway, who knows.

We're gonna take a break here. As Rosetta Data would say, it's always something. Um, we're gonna take a break here on Text Drug Gang.

We're going to come back and we're gonna talk about to copyrights apply to AI content. I thought I knew the answer, and now I'm not so sure you're watching Textron Gang. In a world where every line of code powers the future, every keystroke can introduce new threats As software evolves, so must security, it's time to rethink how we protect our digital world.

Join the leaders in DevSecOps and AI at the OpenText DevSecOps Virtual Summit on September 24th. Discover how innovation is transforming software delivery faster, more secure and smarter from AI driven security to the truth behind cloud security. Get the insights that will keep you ahead of the curve.

Don't just watch the future unfold. Be part of it. Register now and secure your place in tomorrow's world.

All right, this may come as a shock, but there's more AI issues in court these days. And it turns out there's a fellow in, uh, Colorado who's trying to get credit for creating artwork using ai, and apparently he's been denied a copyright. So we're gonna go ask a bunch of lawyers and judges to go sort this out.

But Mitch, I know this in Colorado, and therefore you are a resident Colorado expert, but are people talking about this in Colorado? And what's your takeout? Well, um, my wife, Jodi and I were sitting here watching local News nine news on tv, and here comes this story up about an artist that created something using Midjourney.

And he is, Benni denied a copyright. Matter of fact, his name is Jason Allen, and he won a state competition, I think it was at the state fair for a piece of artwork that he did. Essentially, he made a compilation of images using Midjourney.

He created a series of prompts to create all these images and merge 'em together and, and create this artwork. Um, and that he won an award for it, and he filed for a copyright for it, and they denied it because it was built with ai. Now, he also edited it with Photoshop.

So he's claiming, you know, Hey, I, I did more than just, Hey, would you build this for me? I, I worked with a tool, like I would work with a paintbrush or Photoshop or something else and created this piece of art, and of course, brings AI into the world, into the, into the picture. And that opens the question.

So they've denied, uh, denied this, and he's now appealing that. Uh, but for it to make the local news, I suppose, because it was a state competition that he won some, some award for. But it brings up the point, this could happen just as easily in software, okay?

Uh, writing composition, whatever it might be, right? You're into copyright law, law, is it novel, all of those kind of things. Uh, what did you source from other people?

And is it a derivative of it all That kind of, you know, those considerations that lawyers and that work in the IP world get to debate. So we'll see what happens if he ends up winning the appeal gets copyright or not. Well, I think that the important aspect is what you mentioned there, and that's that, um, this, this gentleman isn't arguing that AI artwork generally should be able to be copyrighted.

It seems to me that he's arguing that he put enough human labor into this composition, that his labor counts to transform what was otherwise a machine generated, um, image into something that can be copyrighted. And I think that that nuance might be lost upon a lot of people listening to this. In fact, I heard a radio story this morning about this exact case, and essentially their point was, should we let the machines generate content and copyright it?

Yes. No. And that's not what's at issue here at all, really.

I mean, if you read actually in, in any kind of, you know, nuanced way, it's pretty obvious that he's saying, look, you know, I'm an artist, even though I didn't pick up a paintbrush. I'm an artist because I iteratively worked through using tools to create an image that met my artistic vision and presented that to people. And, and, and that's no different from what we saw in the eighties and nineties when people were claiming that, um, digital creations couldn't be copyrighted.

And now we've got, you know, some great artists out there who are basically digital artists. And of course, we wouldn't argue now that somebody who used, um, a, a Photoshop or a, uh, Ms Paint isn't less of an artist that someone who uses a paintbrush. Well, I guess I wouldn't argue that.

So maybe somebody would, but, um, but that, that's what he's saying here too, is that, you know, because just because he used Mid Journey doesn't mean that he's not an artist. And I, I'm sensitive to that. On the other hand, I really don't wanna see a world in which, uh, basically digital blah generated completely algorithmically with no human input at all is copyrightable.

Because essentially it would be pretty easy for someone to make a digital tool that would just write everything and copyright everything. And that would, well, that would be bad. I agree.

I think there's a level of human creativity that, that, that's where the subjective debate is, um, with this gentleman and, and with the copyright laws, how much human creativity, what's the percentage of, of that versus Midjourney work? He says that Midjourney couldn't have done it without me and my prompting, and just like, as Steven mentioned with digital art, and go back even further. When people first started taking pictures, I'm sure there were artists that painted and said, well, this doesn't count, because when I paint, I'm doing all these things.

And an artist might say, well, I took this exquisite photograph, um, using my own creativity. So I think I agree. I think that there is gonna be a debate around what is the percentage and the level of human creativity, and that's gonna just increase.

So let me paint a picture for you. No pun intended. Bunch, bunch of people sitting around in Colorado, high, high up in Colorado, you know what I mean?

You had to go The thing, Hey, man, is this, is this copyrightable? Like, I, I, like, I put my own stuff into it, passed that around. I don't know.

I, I think you guys are missing the bigger picture. And here's the bigger picture. If I'm going to use AI to create, whether it's a picture, a word, a program code, and I cannot with confidence, say I own that IP so that I can do it, it's worthless to me.

It's worthless. That's, that's the way the, the world works, right? I, if I'm going to go sell this program, and let's just substitute a computer program for the picture here, would you have a problem with that?

Because if you do, then I can't use AI to code for me anymore. I think you're spot on. Imagine selling your company and them asking you, now, did you, your developers use copilot or any other AI tools to write the code for this?

Well, we might have. Oh, well then we're gonna have to decide whether that's truly you own that or not. Brings up great question.

I agree with what you're saying. I think I'm gonna launch a company called Generator blah, and I'm gonna start launching NFTs off of this thing that I'm gonna use and copyright and try to sell. And that becomes a business.

Is that viable? Let me know how that works out for you, Mike. You could buy some tickets with that money.

Yeah, You look at, you know, those Yankee Dukes. Uh, but no, I mean, I think that that is the crux of the situation. And, and you know, Maya, because this was something I, I, I didn't sit around high up in Colorado, but it was something when AI first came out that I originally started thinking about, which is, okay, it's pulling information from other people's ip.

So do those other people have a right to say, Hey, wait a second, you are, you've got a derivative work that was based on my IP and therefore I have a claim on you. Right? And I think that's an issue that's kinda working its way through right now.

The the other shoe of that equation was when I employ an ai, and it may be a case of do I pay money? Is there compensation right for, to use that ai and therefore it's a work for hire, right? Well, we do works for hire people own the ip, or did I not pay to use the AI and therefore maybe I don't own the IP that was generated.

These are, you know, just legal permutations of this popping around. But you know, clearly if I'm, if, if I have a tool that I'm using to create intellectual property, no matter the format, I've gotta have some certainty over my ownership of it if I'm gonna do business. And I, I, there is a really, this is a threshold question I think we have to answer.

'cause it could put a real monkey in, uh, wrench in the monkey works here. Well, speaking of monkeys, I should point out the case, the related case that that goes directly to this of the, uh, Maccas that took selfie portraits and that caused a challenge to the Copyright Act because a Maca being a non-human animal would not be subject to copyright. And so, as I odd as it sounds, uh, the status of Maca selfies goes directly to the question of whether AI generated artwork or other creations can be copyrighted.

And the answer is very clearly no. Nothing created by a non-human author can be copyrighted according to the copyright office here in the United States. But that being said, there's also the question, as in the case of the Maccas, where the photographer said, Hey, I set this whole situation up just because they pushed the button doesn't make them the artist.

And, and it could be the same for this guy with his, uh, state fair winning art, or it could be the same for somebody who runs a website filled with AI generated blah. By the way, I think that AI generated blah is already a trademark of open ai. So, uh, let's stick with that.

We'll stay, we'll stay away from that. So you're saying a Mac could need to planet the, all of the AI industry, just one Maca, you know, his name is Rooftop, so that's pretty cool. Ow.

I thought his name was Caesar. Um, you know, but I, I think we've gotta draw a distinction. As much as some of us may not wanna admit it, AI is not a being, whether they're a human or not.

AI is clearly a machine tool. A McCarrick is a non-human creature, non sentient, perhaps, depending, I think, on who you want to talk to and when you talk to them. But, you know, I think, uh, as an employer, if I hire an employee and they create something as part of their work product, I own that IP theoretically, especially if I had that in my employment agreement that I make them sign, which I do.

And, and when I buy a machine, the output of that machine belongs to me. Do I own the Maca? Yeah, I, you know, you know, we're not, this doesn't rise to Topeka V or Brown versus Topeka Board of Education kinda stuff.

But I think you can't own the Maca. They're clearly not Hubert. Um, but you know, we are gonna have to start inviting lawyers to the gang.

We need like a lawyer gang member here, because this I, yeah, but this is beyond my, this is beyond my 2 cents. Uh, this is getting complicated, complicated, and I think, but as I said, I think this is gonna be really important, guys. We gotta figure it out anyway, through The courts.

Mitch, I imagine this will continue being fodder for the late night news over in Colorado. It Will. And you forgot one important word.

We don't say hey, man, anymore. We still say, Hey dude. Hey dude, that's, it's been a while since I've been back in Boulder and visit Boulder.

Yeah, I miss Boulder, man. The Republic of Boulder. I remember by the first time I brought my wife out there, she ke I had to go to work and I make, you know, met up with her later and she said, I had wheatgrass for lunch, a shot of wheatgrass.

I said, oh, you're gonna turn green. Um, anyway, we're gonna take a break here on text Sho Gang. We're going to come back and we're gonna talk about, one is Steven's Favorites places Steven h do it with me.

Oh, oh, hi. Oh, okay. You're watching Text Extra again.

Hang on. Snoopy, Discover Textron Group, the epicenter of tech innovation. We are your go-to for reaching IT leaders and practitioners worldwide.

Our secret impactful content that sparks awareness, engagement, and top quality leads with us. You'll access editorial websites, streaming videos, virtual events, custom content analyst research, and more. Join our satisfied clients.

Let's revolutionize your tech journey. Contact us today and tell your story to the world in the most powerful way with Techron Group. Hi everyone.

Welcome back to the Techron Gang. While we are talking about an interesting dispute that is really happening all over the country, but focused right now in Ohio, it is between utility companies and big tech. And the reason that's sparking this dispute, well, usually money is always behind every dispute.

So it's about money, but it there, there's a reason a EP Ohio is saying in order to accommodate AI and all the, the u energy use of data centers in, in an area in of Ohio, particularly where there's so many data centers and it's only growing, they would like to charge the tech companies more over the course of a 10 year period where they are going to compensate for the additional cost of infrastructure upgrades. So I took a closer look at this dispute and looked at both sides, and here's a little bit on that. Hi everyone, I'm Bonnie Schneider with your Ecotech Analyst Insights.

A regulatory dispute in Ohio highlights a growing challenge for utilities and tech companies, how to balance energy demand with fair cost allocation. American Electric Power, Ohio recently proposed charging data centers a higher rate for electricity infrastructure over the course of the next decade. This would raise data centers fees for their expected maximum load from 60 to 90%.

Why the change? Well, central Ohio has become a data center hub with energy demand projected to triple by 2030. A EP Ohio says, accommodating this surge will require billions of dollars in investments in the existing grid.

They anticipate data centers power demand will equate to electricity for powering over 20 million additional homes. Tech companies disagree. They say they are being unfairly targeted.

Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta argue this proposal singles out data centers and it could deter future investments in Ohio. Despite their objections, A EP Ohio maintains costly grid upgrades are essential to meet the escalating energy needs of data centers. This case is one to watch as it could set a precedent for how utilities nationwide navigate this challenge.

Resolution may require innovative solutions such as incentivizing energy efficiency in data centers, exploring alternate cooling technologies, and investing in renewable energy to offset increased demand. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio anticipates a final decision by early 2025. I mentioned that this is not just happening in Ohio, that's because other places in the country are also known for data center hubs like Northern Virginia.

And so Dominion Energy is also looking at this. And their solution that they're negotiation with, with big tech involves dynamic solutions, perhaps charging the utilities, uh, sorry, the tech companies more based on certain parts of the grid that they're using, different times that they're using it. And then you go across to Oregon and what they're saying is, yes, we, we also recognize this problem, but we're thinking about offsetting it with green energy.

How much are these tech companies using green energy? And we're willing to work with them to offset the cost there. So different solutions, different problems.

But the A EP Ohio one is, as I mentioned, it's one to watch because, um, later on they are certainly meeting and discussing it over the next few weeks. But early 2025, there will be resolution or a solution. It's interesting though, that, um, if you look at this again, like all stories, you know, there's nuance here, right?

And I am hesitant to take the, to take the side of an energy company e especially against the, uh, the tech industry. Um, but it, it's important if you look at what A-P-A-E-P Ohio is asking, they're not, at least to my mind, I can't see that they're asking for more money per se. What they're asking for is a commitment.

Mm-Hmm. From these that basically we're gonna build out infrastructure to support you. So you need to give us a commitment of 10 years.

You need to give us a, a an estimate of how much energy you're gonna be you're gonna use, and you're gonna be held to pay for 90% of that estimate no matter what, whether you use it or not. I can see their point, because these are not just, it's not just like me hooking a new house onto the grid using this little tiny amount. These things are huge.

These things are actually requiring these companies to, to, to make huge investments in the grid, huge investments in, in in generation capacity. So I can see why they would want to get a commitment from a data center operator. And, and also, by the way, I should note that it also specifically calls out cryptocurrency, uh, miners as the other area that they would want to get a commitment from these industries before they build out the grid.

Now, of course, that being said, um, you know, a EP is one of the reasons that these companies are all located in Columbus. I mean, if you look at Columbus, it's got a lot to offer. It's got water, it's got people, it's got, uh, internet connectivity, and it's got power, lots and lots of power.

In fact, if you've read Ready Player One by, uh, Ernie Klein, a fellow Ohio native, you know that Columbus in the 2040s is going to be the center of the entire world. Um, and the, and the Metaverse is, is gonna be here in Columbus. So, uh, and, and that, and that's how this happens because we've got a EP and we've got the state of Ohio and we've got all these companies coming in here and, uh, pretty soon forget the coast.

It's gonna be all Ohio. But I digress. The point is, um, what's really going on here, I think is this reaction to the fact that you've got these huge consumers of electricity appearing.

They're, they're, they're attracted and then they want to, uh, you know, they need infrastructure built out. And the companies can't afford to do that unless they have a commitment for the long term. Sorry, go ahead.

Go ahead, Mike. You have talked about the solar panels a lot on previous shows, and so now I'm starting to wonder if this is all partisan. I grain conspiracy to get AI jobs in Ohio and solar panels.

I, I'll tell you what, I'm wondering, have they passed legal marijuana there, or what? That's another story. But you know, the solar panel, Look, what's the 2040s?

Wait, let's go back to this again. Was it the 2040s you said they're gonna be the center of the universe? Yeah, Go read Ready Player One.

It's a great player book. Okay. And that's where it happens in Columbus.

com days, we, I helped a company called Interlay, became known as their July go public. And we actually did a, I think I told you this, Steve, we bought a, uh, subsidiary of Bored and that was their data center and, uh, for Lotus Notes. And, and I think they were doing that.

That was the day. And there was, there was a huge data center business there. But I'm, I'm of two minds of this.

Number one, I do not think it's unreasonable that an energy provider before they go invest tens, hundreds of millions, billions of dollars in energy capacity asks for some sort of commitment from, uh, the companies that are gonna be the primary benefactors and consumers have said energy or capacity. Um, we just did this story last week, right? Microsoft, was it two weeks ago, Microsoft made a deal.

They're gonna bring Three Mile Island, Four could go wrong. Oh yeah. They're gonna bring three Mile Island back online and, and buy almost the, I think it's 800 megawatts or enough electricity for 800,000 homes or something like that for, for data center use over there.

Now, on the other hand though, it is election season. Mm-Hmm. And we want to make America great again or strong again.

We wanna bring, ma we are gonna build back better and we're gonna bring manufacturing and we're gonna bring, you know, data centers and we're gonna bring chip foundries and we're gonna bring all these things back to the heartland. Don't we have some federal money they could apply to for this instead of making people signing blood for, for years and years? There's definitely federal money for renewable energy use, and maybe that's gonna be coming into play with some of the offsetting, as I mentioned.

Yeah. And I wanna, I wanna take a little stab at, at this renewable thing here, because there's been criticism here in Ohio of a EP specifically being opposed to solar, really. And so this is another wrinkle here.

So, uh, there in the 2010s, there were cases in Ohio and, uh, West Virginia of a EP specifically ghost writing laws that would discourage the use of solar and renewable energy. I, i wonder why a power company would want you to not use solar and renewable energy. Interesting.

And, um, and, and they were implicated in that. Now that's a little bit old, obviously things have changed since then, but I do think that this move could actually end up sort of flipping it on its head. So in case you think I'm a power company, sto let me tell you, I think that the power company has every right to say, look, we want a long-term commitment before we build out infrastructure.

And I think these data center operators would be really smart to say, huh, maybe we should invest in solar, then maybe we should invest in alternative energy of our own energy generation of our own. Maybe we should make our own deal with a nuclear plant. Or look at one of these small modular reactors, like we talked about.

A EP could actually see this whole situation slipping outta their fingers if they're not careful. And if they push back too hard, You know, there's another dimension to this, and that's, these energy companies aren't just free to do whatever they want. They are, and usually regulated by some kind of a commission, state commission group.

But there's, in Colorado, it's the publicly utility commission. All price changes. Public impression of Ohio is, uh, notoriously corrupt.

Uh, Google it, you'll find some fun stories. I can, I can imagine all kinds of fun stories, but to, and, and maybe, you know, I won't comment on Colorado's, but, uh, you know, in Colorado, in order to change the, per your pricing, they have to get it approved by the public utility commission. They have to present the, the data that justified, et cetera.

That's only part of it though. Can you imagine the consumers in Ohio saying, our utilities went up by 30% to build the power infrastructure necessary for fill in the blank, Google and Nvidia, whoever the company is that's coming in to build this data center that's way off over here, it's not gonna benefit my community. Why am I paying so much more for energy when it isn't directly benefiting me?

Right. Why should I sub They've got an answer. The coal plant in Indiana, sorry, local politics there in Ohio.

Yeah. Uh, but a EP remember they operate in 11 states. So this is not just an Ohio issue.

Yeah, Okay. I was thinking of the same thing. I was like, you know, Yankee fans are not gonna be supportive of using federal tax dollars to improve the economy in Ohio, so there's downstream benefits for the Guardian.

So, you know, just don't see how it all comes. No, but you know, you guys gotta have it like we do here in Florida where the utility is in cahoots with the state government. Well, yeah.

And they say you can use solar power as long as you get it from the utility uhhuh. And, you know, it's, it's a, it's, it's, don't even get me started. But that, that being said, I mean, clearly as you know, ai, GPU, uh, you know, uh, the capacity comes online as we try to become more of the, you know, a chip foundry area and more data centers and a higher concentration.

And Columbus strives to be the center of the no universe still having a tough time with that. Um, something's gotta give here, right? And it, and it, and the, and the capacity, the build out of that capacity should not be on the backs of, of individual consumers.

If, if the energy's gonna be used by commercial entities like that. And I, I fair it's fair guys, By the way, Steven, I, I begged to differ, uh, Neil Stevenson, who wrote Snow Crasher 92, Los Angeles was the center of the universe, who, by the way, who coined the term or popularized the term avatar. So I'm not sure, I love the book Pretty Player One, but I think it's Los Angeles Man.

I would just like to point out that this is a copyrighted video and that any reference to other copywriting content is covered under I, I'm actually artificially intelligently generated. So, um, none of this counts. That's the, the intelligent part.

We're kidding. We're kidding. I mean, don't I look like Max Headroom?

I can, you know, ion it, if we spiked your hair up a little bit, Look like him, I can tell October's gonna be a hell of a month, a hell of a month for October. Well, speaking of October, I think this is going to wrap up our first show in October. And if this is any indication, strap on, hang On.

We're on for a heck of a month. Um, Steven, when was your next Tech field Day? Tomorrow.

Oh, great. Yeah, I did Infrastructure Field Day, Wednesday, Thursday, this week. Check it out.

We'll be having it here on Tech Drunk tv. Mitch, I hope, when are you heading to Barcelona? I'll head next to Monday.

So, um, they start on, let's Be You're in Barcelona when I'm in San Diego. Yes. It's gonna make for some interesting, uh, Textron gangs.

Yes, it will. Different Time zones. Yeah.

Yeah. I'll be getting up early and you'll be ending your day, but hopefully I'll see you on there and Steven Join us Asia. Then we'll have all the kind of quadrants.

Yeah, I'm, I'm gonna be Outside Yankee Stadium going Please, the guy walking around saying, anybody got tickets? Anybody got tickets? Do tickets Not be in Cleveland watching the Yankees lose?

Oh, actually, Cleveland and the Yankees won't be playing next week, I think. Truth told, I think with the buy. Alrighty.

Hey gang members, thanks so much for a lively, lively discussion today, Bonnie. It's always great having you in the office. Thank you here in the studio with us.

We'll be back tomorrow, but we do have a full day of Techstrong TV immediately following this with some great, great content. So check that out. Until then, though, this is Alan Shimmel for Techstrong Gang.

Have a great day.