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AI data centers face increasing complaints about inaudible but 'felt' infrasound — citizens complain high- and low-frequency sounds do not register on decibel meters but cause adverse health effects (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 99 points 4 months ago (15 children)

Yes, infrasound is a fairly well understood phenomenon. Loud noise at frequencies below 10 Hz isn't commonly picked up by recording equipment but can induce things like anxiety, nausea, and sleep problems. While recently wind power plants have sometimes been accused of generating it, it's also been caused by industrial fans and even resonance in a building's ductwork.

It wouldn't surprise me if a data center's AC caused enough noise at frequencies not normally monitored to become an issue.

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  • [–] 57 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    Pipelines also cause a resonance hum that some people CAN hear for miles, and it drives them batshit.

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  • [–] 34 points 4 months ago

    There's a steam plant for my local hospital about 300m from my house. When I'm in my basement trying to record drums, I can audibly hear when the plant is running. Super low, sub-50hz hum. It gets into all my mics.

    Fortunately my bedroom is on the second floor of the house so the resonance doesn't keep me up at night.

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  • [–] 15 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Anxiety, nausea and sleep problems can be caused by many things. One of those things is believing that a nearby datacenter is making you ill.

    Sure, investigate it and see if it is actually happening. But, do a proper double-blind study.

    I take this personally because my mother is a conspiracy nut who thinks that everything is making her ill: wifi, chemtrails, street lights, electricity, gluten... if she heard about infrasound she'd add it to the list of things that are hurting her health.

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  • [–] 27 points 4 months ago

    You don't need a double-blind study to determine if acoustic emissions are the culprit. You just need to measure specifically for infrasound (and ultrasound, for that matter). It's an unusual form of pollution but very much measurable if you know to look for it.

    Unlike the things you mentioned, infrasound is understood to be a thing these days and is sometimes considered in construction. It's not exactly witchcraft; most equipment (including decibel meters) just isn't built to account for very low frequencies.

    If the data center does put out noise at very low frequencies that's probably some kind of unintended resonance that they'll have to stop. It might be as simple as slightly changing the RPMs of some cooling fans or installing sound proofing in specific places.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago

    Infrasound isn't some fringe conspiracy theory, it's well-understood, and infrasound weapons are banned by the laws of warfare because they literally torture people to death and can cause internal bleeding.

    The infrasound in this article is obviously less intense than a deliberately designed weapon, but it can still cause extreme discomfort, pain, illness, and stress.

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  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago* (6 children)

    In one case, apparently, the infranoise was at the right frequency to resonate with the eye and cause people to hallucinate. This was due to a fan in a basement, not an entire data center.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    [citation needed]

    I fully believe that at times infrasound can result in anxiety, nausea, etc. But, in 2026 so can reading the news. So can thinking that your health is being affected by a datacenter, resulting in you worrying and losing sleep.

    This whole thing about the "resonant frequency of the eye" and that causing someone to hallucinate... that smells like utter BS. A much more likely explanation in a basement is carbon monoxide.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (4 children)
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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Ok, that's a paper that attempts to explain the feeling that a building might be haunted. There's nothing in there about causing people to hallucinate. They talk about the supposed "resonant frequency of the eye", but then they say:

    The resonant frequency is the natural frequency of an object, the one at which it needs the minimum input of energy to vibrate. As you can see from above, any frequency above 8 Hz will have an effect and some sources quote 40Hz

    If the values are that vague, then there is no resonant frequency. There may be frequencies that transmit vibrations to the eye, but with a big enough speaker you can cause anything to vibrate.

    The closest the get to hallucinations is to say that "the eyeball would be vibrating which would cause a serious "smearing"of vision. It would not seem unreasonable to see dark shadowy forms caused by something as innocent as the corner of V.T.’s spectacles." So, no hallucinations, just some blurry vision that might vaguely count as an excuse for seeing a ghost if your eye is vibrating significantly. Notice that that's all just speculation, saying "this seems like it could be possible" rather than actually testing for that hypothesis.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    We had slightly different readings.

    As he was writing he became aware that he was being watched, and a figure slowly emerged to his left. It was indistinct and on the periphery of his vision but it moved as V.T. would expect a person to. The apparition was grey and made no sound... V.T. was unable to see any detail and finally built up the courage to turn and face the thing. As he turned the apparition faded and disappeared.

    He experienced a visual disturbance in his periphery manifesting as the false perception of a person. Even without it being interpreted as a person, that's a textbook mild hallucination.

    Once V.T. knew this he calculated the frequency of the standing sound wave ... 18.97Hz ... plus or minus 10%

    Table IV on page 212 of this book shows frequencies causing disturbance to the eyes and vision to be within the band 12 to 27 Hz.

    Most interestingly, a NASA technical report mentions a resonant frequency for the eye as 18 Hz (NASA Technical Report 19770013810).

    He cited two sources inline with ranges narrower than 8-40Hz which indicate that vision can be affected at the same frequencies he measured in the lab. He even noted that everyone would have slightly different resonant frequencies.

    No, it's not a full research paper, but it is the citation you requested.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    He experienced a visual disturbance in his periphery manifesting as the false perception of a person

    Which can't be explained by an unfocused eye. They do a lot of speculating to come up with a reason why he could possibly see something out of the corner of his eye. But, that's only the physical part of it. It doesn't explain why he might think that whatever he was seeing was "a figure" and moved like a person.

    That's like saying that ghosts can be explained by wearing glasses with dirty lenses, then going into detail about how dirty lenses can cause someone to see something that isn't there, while ignoring the elephant ghost in the room. Except it's even worse because a smudge on your glasses causing you to "see something that isn't there" is really easy to test and barely needs an experiment to confirm it's true. But, low frequency waves causing someone to see something that isn't there isn't something that has been tested. It's pure speculation.

    So, pure speculation that low frequency waves can cause someone's eyes to blur in such a way that the corner of their glasses is mistaken as something that isn't there. No proof that has happened or can happen, just speculation.

    Then ignoring the elephant in the room that just because someone might not see clearly if their eye is vibrating, that is somehow magically interpreted as a figure moving like a person, which they interpret as a ghost.

    There's a humongous jump there from "a certain frequency might cause the eyes to wiggle" to "and therefore that's why he saw a ghost".

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    I'm not sure I understand. Peripheral hallucinations are a recognized type of hallucination, and hallucinations can involve anything from shadows or flashes of light through to full vivid imagery. It only requires perceiving anything that isn't really there and but it feels real. The patterns or colors you see when you close your eyes are considered hallucinations too.

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