A few weeks ago, a story sped by in the sluice, something about a company with a substantial valuation that had a workforce of two — the founding partners. Everything else the company did was carried out by AI.
I don’t recall much more about it, AI being a topic that’s simultaneously rage-inducing and terrifying, so I probably read the first three paragraphs and noped out. But it came to mind in recent weeks, in connection with a gas-station credit card of Alan’s.
It’s a negligible card in our credit constellation, kept mainly for emergencies or those back-in-the-day days when you’re driving on fumes but payday is 24 hours away. I always paid it off, never carried a balance. It would give me an updated credit score every so often, which I appreciated: 820. Still excellent.
But earlier this year, we started receiving mail, both e- and snail, informing us that the oil company was closing its proprietary credit-card operation, and migrating it to a branded MasterCard, overseen by an entirely different company, Imprint. Quick! Migrate your account now! Your old card won’t work after May 18! As the payer of the household bills and a person who has most of her shit together, I obeyed these orders. First attempt: No account recognized under this name. Second attempt, a few days later: Same. Third, fourth and fifth attempts, days after that: Same.
Time to call Customer Support then, a call immediately answered by a clanker, er, virtual assistant. The clanker opened by encouraging me to do everything online, where it’s “easier.” Otherwise, tell me in a few words what the problem is. You all know how this goes, because we’ve all been there. The questions aren’t understood, and you end up bellowing REPRESENTATIVE!!! before being shunted to an alleged human being, where “wait times may be longer than normal due to high call volumes.” Reader, I hung on the line for 20 minutes, my personal limit for cycling through hold music.
This happened twice, before I found the company website and started rooting around in the About section, until I found the page for media inquiries. I filled it out with my information, left a terse but not obscenity-filled note about the problem, and went for a bike ride.
An hour later, a call from the company, which went to voicemail, as I was still out touching grass. I tried logging in again when I returned. Mirabile dictu, my account was recognized. Moments later, I was assured that my new MasterCard was on its way. Shipped!
That was May 19. The card has not yet arrived. It hasn’t been activated, whew, but it’s somewhere between there and here, and true to the warnings, the old card no longer works. I tried calling Imprint again. Clanker, clanker, clanker. REPRESENTATIVE!!!! Sorry, no one is here to take your call, try again later.
Sorry for the long windup here, but would someone please tell me how this miracle technology is going to improve our lives? Gov. Gretchen Whitmer lost 99 percent of my personal support last week, when she happily participated in a ceremonial groundbreaking for a gigantic data center in Saline, south of Ann Arbor. It’s safe to say that virtually no one in the area, save the construction tycoon who got the contract, wants this thing. OpenAI had to threaten to sue the pants off the city to get it done. And the governor shrugged and picked up the shiny shovel.
The editorial-page editor at the Freep had a succinct column about this today. Probably paywalled, so here’s the heart of it:
And there was Sam Altman on Monday, smiling alongside Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at the site of a hyperscale data center in Saline Township ― a massive project that will suck down enough electricity to power 1 million households ― bitterly opposed by a lot of residents and forced into the community via lawsuit:
“We know what the current attitude towards data centers in the world is … but I think we can make this a great example … This could turn into the site where hundreds of millions of students around the world learn and get private tutoring. This could turn into the site where millions of small businesses can run their business with AI in the cloud. … Hopefully someday we’ll all read about some incredible thing AI has done for society … and there’ll be a good chance that it happened as this site came online.”
This is a new, rosier Altman, who lately has seemed to discover that telling people you’re working to usher in a “Terminator”/”The Matrix”-esque version of the future where humans are meat batteries for our robot overlords evokes a little pushback. (But hasn’t seemed to hurt the prospects of OpenAI, which is steaming toward a $1 trillion IPO.)
So this is my question, one that it’s absolutely insane I even have to ask: If Altman believes that his work could result in the end of humanity as the planet’s dominant species, why on earth is Michigan doing business with him?
Good question. The governor’s spokesman had no comment.
Meanwhile, back in my little beef with Imprint, I thought it might be fun to punch their name into the Google and ask for reviews. Hoo-boy:
My REMOVED card, which I have had for 32 years in excellent standing has been moved to this company named Imprint Payments. This company is now sending me texts saying I have to agree to having their REMOVED. I already have a Mastercard, so I am not interested.I have been trying to do two things for the past nine days:- Pay any balance on the account – Close the account I have spent 67 hours on hold (literally 8 hours a day) trying to get a representative to assist. I have tried doing it online but the automated system does not recognize my name or birthday or anything else to identify REMOVED now receiving texts saying my account payment is due. I have used the website asking for assistance and am on hold again today as I REMOVED does not matter what option you choose, the system either says I’m not recognized and puts me on hold to speak to an agent. The past three days after being on hold for three hours it just hangs up on you, so I start the process all over. This is definitely feeling like a scam now as I have no way of paying any balance and/or closing the account. PLEASE HELP!!!
If I had this person’s contact information, I’d suggest they leave a note on the media-inquiries page. Not that it’s done me that much good. Poking around that page, I notice most of the content is press releases and one story from Forbes. Which is now a content farm.
Probably a clanker edits it now.
Deborah said on June 7, 2026 at 9:20 am
I like the word clanker.
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Dave said on June 7, 2026 at 10:38 am
We had a gas card that, three years ago, the company did the same thing, creating a branded card. I believe that is was Master Card. We didn’t want or need anymore credit accounts and there was an option to decline it before the switchover, so we did decline it. The card came, anyway, but at our first opportunity, we stopped in at one of their stations and tried the card, which didn’t work. Great, and we haven’t heard from that large company that used to be Sohio in Ohio, since
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David C said on June 7, 2026 at 10:57 am
There was a big article in my local Mlive rag (Kalamazoo Gazette) on the three Michigan women possibly running for President. They were Whitmer, Slotkin, and one other I forgot. No thanks to any of them.
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Icarus said on June 7, 2026 at 11:40 am
If it’s not obvious, I’m a cis male, but in college, I spent a lot of time in the girls’ dorm rooms. They were cleaner, nicer, and they had girls!
Anyway, one day a knock on the door by a sorority girl asking us to fill out applications for a credit card from Fashion Bug. She asked me to fill one out too because they got a $1 for each application.
I actually got approved for a card and used it to buy my mom birthday and Christmas sweaters and building my credit score.
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brettvk said on June 7, 2026 at 12:13 pm
The unhelpfulness of chatbots might be a consequence of the technology, or it might be designed to train all of us out of the habit of expecting customer service from corporations. I incline to the latter theory. I pay my 90s-ish mother’s credit card bill over the phone because I’ve never been able to set up online access to her account, and for years I’ve been able to do it by entering the last 4 digits of the card. Some upgrade took place that no doubt involved AI, and now I have to enter the 4 digits twice and let the robot tell me it doesn’t recognize the card, before I’m compelled to enter all 16 digits. It’s a small but soul-eroding thing.
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Julie Robinson said on June 7, 2026 at 2:05 pm
My aunt told me that her mother would walk to the bank, take out cash, then walk around paying all her bills. Obviously she lived in a small town, but it got me to thinking about all the positives. She had to get herself dressed, got exercise, had all kinds of social interactions, and helped employ actual people instead of a data farm.
Last night we had a pre-hurricane party at church, really just an excuse to open the doors and invite in the community. People spilled outside, maybe 150 or more; shared food and conversation. Today they are sending messages on how wonderful it was and how they love living in a neighborhood where people know each other. We have all become isolated, and I believe most of us crave community even if we don’t realize that as a need.
But hey, thanks for reminding me how much fun it’ll be getting Mom a new debit card!
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4dbirds said on June 7, 2026 at 2:47 pm
If interested, I have a link to my daughter’s Katherine’s obituary. https://obituaries.carewellcremations.com/katherine-bradley
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Jeff Gill said on June 7, 2026 at 3:27 pm
Thank you for sharing that, 4dbirds; we are the less without her.
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Suzanne said on June 7, 2026 at 3:56 pm
There is a data center being built near us. I cannot begin to describe the size of the thing. What is interesting to me is that a number of years ago, in Allen County, IN, some farmer wanted to sell his farmland to a solar company to make it a solar farm. To do so, he needed to get some sort of county permit which he never got because of the hysterical outcry from nearby residents. They organized, protested, you name it and put a stop to it.
Now that an equally huge swath of farmland in Allen County, IN has been taken over by this data center, there was not nearly the level of anger and upset that the solar farm got. Not even close. I find this interesting.
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4dbirds said on June 7, 2026 at 5:58 pm
Suzanne, I live in middle of Data Center central. I’ve been wondering for years when people would get sick of them.
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Dave said on June 7, 2026 at 7:49 pm
Yes, you do, 4dbirds, our son lived by One Loudoun for quite a few years, every time we’d come there, we were struck by all the huge windowless buildings that were data centers. Also, we’d notice not too many cars in the parking lots.
Our daughter-in-law grew up in Sterling.
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Nancy Friedman said on June 7, 2026 at 8:16 pm
Coincidentally, I just finished reading Andrew Cockburn’s story in the June issue of Harper’s about the fights in Saline and elsewhere over data centers.
https://harpers.org/archive/2026/06/the-data-center-divide-andrew-cockburn-artificial-intelligence/
If you hit a paywall, try https://archive.is/H8GTJ
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Mark P said on June 7, 2026 at 8:17 pm
I’ve mentioned before that Microsoft plans, or maybe planned, to build a data center about a mile and a half down at the bottom of the mountain where we live. County officials seem to think it will mean an employment boom, but of course it won’t. I assume there will be property tax benefits.
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Brandon said on June 7, 2026 at 8:54 pm
About the Saline data center, and others. https://www.related-digital.com/news
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Deborah said on June 7, 2026 at 9:03 pm
4dbirds, If one can say they enjoyed an obit as weird as that sounds I found Katie’s heartening even in it’s sadness. “Enjoyed” is of course not the right word at all, but I can’t think of a better word right now. I must say I feel like I know Katie now, only a tiny bit of course. What a struggle she endured and you with her, seeing her smiling photos was very moving, thank you for that.
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Suzanne said on June 7, 2026 at 9:24 pm
Beautiful obituary of your daughter 4dbirds. What terrible things beset her and yet, what strength and fortitude she displayed throughout her life. Having had leukemia and then witnessing brain cancer take my sister’s life, my heart goes out to you and your family. These are horrible diseases that I so wish didn’t exist. Praying for peace for all of you.
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Brandon said on June 7, 2026 at 9:37 pm
A few weeks ago, a story sped by in the sluice, something about a company with a substantial valuation that had a workforce of two — the founding partners. Everything else the company did was carried out by AI.
Is this it?
https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/healthcare/articles/1-8-billion-startup-just-190000841.html
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Brandon said on June 7, 2026 at 10:52 pm
More on Imprint Payments: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/imprint-payments-startup-darragh-murphy-unicorn-soonicorn-forbes
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David C said on June 8, 2026 at 5:08 am
Imprint went from founding to billion dollar enshitificator in six short years. What’s the record?
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Icarus said on June 8, 2026 at 10:16 am
4dbirds, IIRC you have had a very rough decade. Anyway, as the Vulcans say, I mourn with you.
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Julie Robinson said on June 8, 2026 at 11:16 am
Barbara, thank you for sharing Katie’s valiant struggles with us. May time bring you peace.
Still glowing from the Tony’s last night. The performances were over the top. The acceptance speeches were full of love, wisdom, and the power of diversity. My favorite night of the year.
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JodiP said on June 8, 2026 at 12:55 pm
Thank you for sharing Katie’s obituary, 4dbirds. She sounds like such an amazing, loving person whose light shone out to all who knew her.
I wish she could have lived much longer. She was such a gift to the world.
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Sherri said on June 8, 2026 at 4:24 pm
There’s a difference between the data centers that have been built in the past, and the AI data centers that are being planned.
Traditional data centers were built in areas where electricity is cheaper, typically are around 100,000 sq ft in size, and consume 10-50 megawatts. Think of them as roughly equivalent to a big box store like Costco, but a Costco store uses about 1 MW.
Hyperscale data centers, the ones being planned and built now, are more like a million sq ft or more (usually in multiple buildings), and consume more like 100 MW or more (there are gigawatt data centers being planned, which would be 1000 MW.) They are full of GPUs, special chips for AI processing, and those chips are being run flat out more than a traditional data center. And the chips themselves are more complex, and generate more heat.
The two biggest challenges for any data center is securing enough power and getting rid of heat. Getting rid of heat is where the water usage comes in. There are ways other than using water to get rid of heat, but they are complicated, and there are ways of using water that are more or less efficient. Hyperscale data centers don’t have to be inefficient in their water use, but without regulation, they will be because it’s simpler.
When you start talking about gigawatt data centers, you start to have the problem that the local utility doesn’t have enough capacity to provide it. That’s how you end up with gas turbines powering data centers, as Musk has done in Memphis. Sure, he’s polluting the air and contributing to global warming, but in the absence of regulations stopping him, that’s the fastest way to get more power.
There’s a third problem with these AI data centers, which is that the GPUs are much more expensive and, because they’re being run flat out, don’t last as long before needing to be replaced. Plus, GPU capabilities are changing quickly, so new generations are coming out that are faster. Needing to change out failing chips regularly has an impact on what cooling systems can work well, and, in the absence of requirements to the contrary, more inefficient uses of water allow for simpler chip replacements.
(This is a very rough overview of data centers, without even getting into the truly eye-popping amounts of money being invested in them. I find it hard to conceive of how that investment can ever be paid back, but certainly lots of people with lots of money are betting otherwise.)
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4dbirds said on June 8, 2026 at 4:54 pm
Thank you all for the lovely words about Katie. When I would comment and mention her leukemia, her horrible car accident and her brain tumor, I often wondered if you though I was one of those people who had to one-up every story. No, that was our life.
Anyone who thinks data centers will bring jobs is fooling themselves or lying to their constituents. They need barely any people.
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Mark P said on June 8, 2026 at 6:02 pm
Fear of MS’s data center’s water use is one of the main concerns around here. If they use ground water, they will be taking from the water we use up on the mountain. County water is available at the site, but why buy water when you can pump it out of the ground for the cost of running shallow-well pumps?
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Ann said on June 8, 2026 at 9:30 pm
My son just told me about a friend of his who managed to get a degree in AI at just the right time and was offered $500K cash plus a million in equity as a starting annual salary. But then another AI company started poaching employees by offering them $10 million/ year so his company matched it. When the IPO happens, he’s likely to come out with something like $500 million. He’s 27. I fail to see how that can be real money and, if so, where it’s coming from.
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Deborah said on June 8, 2026 at 10:10 pm
Back in 2013 I met a lot of young people employed with what I called internet companies. They worked for companies that were heavily invested in but had absolutely no revenue stream, they hadn’t been monetized yet to the point that they were in anyway self sufficient or profitable. I’ve looked them up and the companies don’t seem to exist anymore, some were probably sold and subsumed into another company that I have no idea the new name of, and others just probably died along the way. Some of those companies were killed off so they wouldn’t be competitive with more ruthless companies. Anyway, that’s how I feel about AI now, some of it will be wildly successful, but a lot of it will just disappear. What happens with those gargantuan data centers when they fail to survive the competition? As the tech improves over time the need for that much space is probably going to shrink and all that built environment will be for naught. They will go the way of dead shopping malls or vast empty warehouses. Their design is for such a niche use, how could they ever be repurposed?
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jack horner said on June 9, 2026 at 5:35 pm
Today’s data center is tomorrow’s detention center.
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MarkH said on June 9, 2026 at 8:11 pm
4dbirds – Adding my thoughts and condolences for the loss of Katie, that obituary is a lovely tribute to her and her struggles. Any parent feels the impact of your loss. For us, seeing that Katie was same age as our son, whom we almost lost when his diabetic onset spiraled out of control when he was one year old. As Jeff G. would say, continued Peace and Grace to you.
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