Adopt This Data Center Plushie and Hear Its Piercing Scream
Adopt This Data Center Plushie and Hear Its Piercing Scream
领养这个数据中心玩偶，听听它刺耳的尖叫
Uh oh, we got a cute alert! It’s Bezzy, your adorable, cuddly, anthropomorphized server-rack and stuffed-animal friend! Give this soft lil’ doll a squeeze, and it shall sing you its telltale song: the piercing, grinding ambient squeals emitted from a real US data center.
噢，警报！可爱来袭！这就是 Bezzy，你那可爱、可抱、拟人化的服务器机架毛绒玩具朋友！捏一捏这个柔软的小玩偶，它就会为你唱出它的标志性“歌曲”：那是来自美国真实数据中心发出的刺耳、磨人的环境尖叫声。
The Bezzy doll is a stuffed plushie made in a satirical collaboration between the New York–based creative studio Basura and Big Data, the musical project of producer Alan Wilkis, best known for the song “Dangerous,” a 2013 collaboration with the band Joywave. The joint project, which is coming out the same day as a new Big Data single, is called Adopt a Data Center. The goal is to present people with a “cuddly introduction to life with a real data center.”
Bezzy 玩偶是一款毛绒玩具，由纽约创意工作室 Basura 与音乐项目“Big Data”讽刺性合作推出。Big Data 是制作人 Alan Wilkis 的音乐项目，他最著名的作品是 2013 年与 Joywave 乐队合作的歌曲《Dangerous》。这个联合项目名为“领养一个数据中心”（Adopt a Data Center），与 Big Data 的新单曲同日发布。其目标是为人们提供一种“与真实数据中心共存的可爱入门体验”。
Data Centers are very un-vogue right now. Built out by all the big AI companies to power their increasingly power-hungry AI tools, data centers have spread across thousands of acres of land in the US. They have been heavily criticized for their energy consumption and expansion of gas power. They have also proven to be audibly annoying, stirring up complaints about noise pollution from those nearby.
数据中心现在非常“不讨喜”。为了支撑日益耗电的 AI 工具，各大 AI 公司纷纷扩建数据中心，它们已在美国占据了数千英亩的土地。这些中心因其巨大的能源消耗和对天然气发电的扩张需求而受到严厉批评。此外，它们还被证明会产生恼人的噪音，引发了周边居民对噪音污染的投诉。
The Adopt a Data Center stunt aims to make people think differently about how services produced by data centers fit into their lives. That manifests as a plush stuffie that looks like a server rack in a data center, albeit with long arms and legs and googly eyes. It’s cute in the way Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is cute. Squeeze Bezzy’s torso and the sound bursts out. It’s a screeching few seconds of a recording taken by a neighbor of a data center in Virginia. The tag on the Bezzy plushie reads, “Hug me for ear-piercing forever hum.”
“领养一个数据中心”这一噱头旨在让人们重新思考数据中心提供的服务如何融入他们的生活。其表现形式就是一个看起来像数据中心服务器机架的毛绒玩具，尽管它长着长手长脚和一对滑稽的眼睛。它有一种类似《Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared》那种诡异的可爱感。挤压 Bezzy 的躯干，声音就会爆发出来。那是弗吉尼亚州一位数据中心邻居录下的几秒钟尖叫声。Bezzy 玩偶的标签上写着：“抱抱我，听那刺耳的永恒嗡嗡声。”
“We picked this recording as it was the clearest and most suitably irritating,” wrote Rajeev Basu, the founder of Basura, in an email to WIRED. In an interview with the person who recorded the audio, Basu says they described the sound as “like a car alarm going off nonstop. It’s high-pitched, and it’s all you can focus on.”
“我们选择了这段录音，因为它最清晰，也最令人心烦意乱，”Basura 的创始人 Rajeev Basu 在给《连线》（WIRED）的一封电子邮件中写道。在采访录音者时，Basu 说他们将这种声音描述为“就像汽车警报器不停地响。声音尖锐，让你无法专注于其他任何事情。”
Basura has worked on other projects like making luxury wear for dogs and a partnership with Yerba Madre that made dirt shoes designed to break apart during a walk to spread wildflower seeds.
Basura 此前还参与过其他项目，例如制作狗狗奢侈服装，以及与 Yerba Madre 合作制作“泥土鞋”，这种鞋在行走过程中会分解，从而播撒野花种子。
Along with Bezzy, the data centers project includes a collection of stickers that say things like “Every data center deserves a forever home” and “Open your heart. And your power grid.” Basu says the project is the result of dozens of interviews with people who live near data centers in the US. The website itself reads, “Adopt a data center: All they ask for is everything.”
除了 Bezzy，该数据中心项目还包括一系列贴纸，上面写着“每个数据中心都值得拥有一个永远的家”和“敞开你的心扉，还有你的电网”。Basu 表示，该项目是对美国数据中心附近居民进行数十次采访后的成果。网站上写着：“领养一个数据中心：它们索求的，是你的全部。”
Wilkis, whose band Big Data has “It’s giving Black Mirror, but make it music” in its Spotify description, says that the one upside of the data center debate is that the backlash is genuinely bipartisan.
Wilkis 的乐队 Big Data 在 Spotify 的简介中写道“这很有《黑镜》的感觉，但它是音乐”。他表示，关于数据中心争论的唯一积极面在于，这种抵制情绪确实跨越了党派。
“AI is a proxy for decades of widening wealth inequality in America, and data centers are its physical embodiment,” Wilkis wrote to WIRED. “With roughly 40 percent of the stock market’s value riding on a handful of tech companies, the US economy is already a bet on AI’s success.”
“AI 是美国几十年来贫富差距不断扩大的代理人，而数据中心则是其物理化身，”Wilkis 在给《连线》的信中写道。“随着股市约 40% 的价值押注在少数几家科技公司身上，美国经济实际上已经是在赌 AI 的成功了。”
Sadly, only 20 Bezzy dolls are available for $99 from the Adopt a Data Center website and the Big Data storefront. Basura designed the toys, which are handmade in the US. But the physical toy isn’t the real point. The satire is meant to hook people into looking at the facts for themselves. When you click “adopt now” on the website, you’re taken to a statement with links to research and stories about how data centers fit into the world.
遗憾的是，Adopt a Data Center 网站和 Big Data 商店仅提供 20 个 Bezzy 玩偶，售价 99 美元。这些玩偶由 Basura 设计，在美国手工制作。但实体玩具并不是重点。这种讽刺旨在吸引人们去亲自了解事实。当你点击网站上的“立即领养”时，你会跳转到一个声明页面，其中包含有关数据中心如何融入世界的各种研究和报道链接。
“It’s not about whether AI data centers should exist,” Basu says. “It’s about who gets to decide where they go, what resources they consume, and whether the communities living beside them actually benefit.”
“这不仅仅是关于 AI 数据中心是否应该存在的问题，”Basu 说，“而是关于谁有权决定它们建在哪里、它们消耗什么资源，以及生活在它们旁边的社区是否真的从中受益。”