On phone unlock and frequently thereafter, have the user prove they are over 18.

If they can't or won't, then the phone reverts to "text only" mode, where the only images you see are those provided by the OS or compiled in the apps. Web sites load with placeholder images. Images stored in the camera roll and in the SMS app are replaced with placeholders. The camera is turned off. You get the idea.

I call it a "temporary workaround" because ideally it will result in a political compromise.

It has nothing to do with "AI" at least for me. It has to do with being good corporate citizens. I'd make the same arguments if an aluminum smelter or other heavy-electricity-user was causing grid problems by suddenly turning the power demand from very high to very low in ways that are known to harm the grid when there are commercially available, economically feasible ways to ramp power up and down without hurting the grid.

While the grid operator has the primary responsibility to care for the grid, all users have a responsibility to "play nice" with the grid and not do things that are known to be harmful to it.

It's reasonable for the grid operator to say "99.x% of the time we will be operating within y% of specifications, see that you behave well when we are operating within these specifications. When you do disconnect and reconnect, see that do do so in a manner that is no more harmful than throwing a switch (e.g. limit rushes of current)."

The problem with the data centers is they are disconnecting and reconnecting in ways that harm the grid even when the grid is operating within the specifications provided by the grid operator.

Going from using 100MW to using less than 1MW (or zero) in less than 1 second is going to harm the network. It's reasonable for the grid operator to tell you that you as a matter of contract that you are only allowed to do that if 1) you have a bona fide emergency, or 2) the grid itself is operating outside of specifications. Instead of going to zero in less than 1 second, it's reasonable for you to be required to ramp usage down slowly, in a manner that does not harm the grid.

There will no doubt be anti-theft/anti-tampering measures in place.

My hope is that if someone opens the case without the right key a stink bomb explodes on them.

More realistically, there will be technical measures in place to make the computer hardware useless to thieves. Once word gets around there won't be any incentive to steal them.

The issue is that the disconnections happen when grid power quality drops below acceptable levels.

A poor-power-quality-tolerant UPS doesn't have to be disconnected from the grid when the power quality dips.

Therefore such sudden cutoffs would be much rarer.

The biggest complains from huge data centers are noise, traffic, water use, and power use/impact on the grid, without the economic benefits that a large-energy-using factory would typically bring.

Depending on location, a bunch of smaller complexes spread over hundreds of square miles vs. one big one might have tolerable noise and traffic levels, particularly if they are in non-residential areas. If you can get the data center down to under, a few thousand square feet, you can literally disguise it as a house.

Water is becoming a non-issue with closed-loop systems.

Electricity is still an issue. On-site power-generation/storage can mitigate this. This is one area where a single big complex may be better than a bunch of smaller complexes.

As a sidebar: Data centers do bring in some economic benefits, the most obvious one being through taxes paid (assuming the companies didn't get any sweetheart deals to avoid taxes). But after construction is complete they don't have the ongoing payroll/head-count that a big factory has.

Texas knows all about 'ZZZzzt *poof*'.

Sorry. I need decaounces of caffeinated liquid.

You are building a billion-dollar data center and you aren't putting routine-but-poor-power-quality-tolerant power-conditioning uninterruptible power supplies between the grid and your sensitive equipment???

Besides, if you are going to build a deci-megawatt-or-bigger power consuming complex, it would help the grid out if you put some grid-scale-batteries and a large amount of always-on local power generation on-site, as some data center complexes and other heavy-industry-consumers are already doing.

According to this promotional web site it looks like they are planning to self-power.

On the contrary, electricity matters and they should be close to a source of power.

Why close? So they don't need to run new transmission lines to connect to the grid.

Fortunately for AI data center owners, the sun is close. If you have enough additional contiguous land you can build a solar + battery plant to meet most of your needs. If you can tolerate downtime when the batteries are drained, you won't need high-power transmission lines at all.

What's that? You didn't buy enough real estate for your AI server farm AND a solar plant AND a battery farm? Sorry, poor planning on your part doesn't generate any sympathy from me.

Corrupt governments around the world are saying "hold my beer."

You say this like it's a bad thing. Far more useful is "how many people does lung cancer kill each year."

If it kills 100 people worldwide each year but all other kinds of cancer kill 99 or fewer each, then "meh" or maybe even "wow, that's great news, now we can focus our death-prevention efforts on other causes of death."

Ditto any late-1990s-era web-bulletin-board system that had a notifications system.

Teens will find a way to socialize, and they will use media to do it.

Take my home heater/AC system for example: It's got a handful of wires that lead the thermostat. I can plug in a basic mid-20th-century thermostat to it or I can plug in a 2026 top-of-the-line network-enabled-with-AI-included device.

Tractors and cars should be like that.