A plush toy resembling a server rack now plays a recording of a screaming data centre. Squeezing the torso of the doll triggers a few seconds of audio taken from a neighbour in Virginia.
The item, named Bezzy, is the result of a collaboration between the New York studio Basura and Big Data, the musical project of Alan Wilkis. The project launches alongside a new single and is titled Adopt a Data Center. The aim is to provide a soft introduction to living near a real facility.
Data centres are currently unpopular. Major artificial intelligence firms have built these sites across thousands of acres in the US to power their tools. Critics point to high energy use and the expansion of gas power. Neighbours have also complained about noise pollution.
The stunt attempts to change how people view services produced by these sites. It uses a stuffed animal that looks like a server rack but has long limbs and googly eyes. The toy is cute in the way Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is cute.
Squeezing the doll releases a screeching sound. The tag reads, “Hug me for ear-piercing forever hum.”
“We picked this recording as it was the clearest and most suitably irritating,” Rajeev Basu, founder of Basura, wrote to WIRED. He spoke to the neighbour who recorded the audio. The neighbour described the sound as “like a car alarm going off nonstop. It’s high-pitched, and it’s all you can focus on.”
Basura has created other projects, including luxury wear for dogs and dirt shoes designed to break apart during a walk to spread wildflower seeds.
The project includes stickers with phrases like “Every data center deserves a forever home” and “Open your heart. And your power grid.” Basu says the work stems from dozens of interviews with residents near data centres in the US. The website states, “Adopt a data center: All they ask for is everything.”
Wilkis, whose band describes itself as “It’s giving Black Mirror, but make it music” on Spotify, says the backlash against data centres is genuinely bipartisan.
“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.”
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. The physical item is not the main point.
The satire is meant to hook people into looking at the facts for themselves. Clicking “adopt now” on the website leads to a statement with links to research and stories about how data centres fit into the world.
“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.”
