Vitalik: The anti-data center movement may not be a bad thing; slowing the expansion of computing power can buy humanity more time.

November 8: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated in a post that he disagrees with the strongly emotional reaction this week against the anti-data-center movement. The core logic is based on algorithmic progress: tasks that now require larger and more data centers to complete in two years could be completed with existing data centers in four years (or even sooner). Therefore, even if the anti-data-center movement achieves extreme success, it will not trigger any catastrophic consequences resembling doomsday.

Vitalik pointed out that slowing the expansion of computing power can buy humanity more time to strengthen its response to emerging cybersecurity issues and potential future biological risks. At the same time, scientific applications are constrained by many factors beyond AI, so if AI development slows by one year, the slowdown in scientific progress will be far less than one year. Overall, a slowdown in the ultra-large-scale expansion of computing power appears to have a net benefit, and this judgment does not need to rely on controversial arguments such as "doomerism" or recursive self-improvement (RSI).