Data center outages: why two thirds are human error and how Entangl's deterministic AI fixes it
Thinking On Paper
Intro
Hosts Mark and Jeremy introduce Shapol and the episode focus on data center reliability and AI solutions.
Two thirds of data centre outages are caused by someone pressing the wrong switch. Not a cyberattack. Not a hardware failure. A person, in a building full of thousands of switches, turning off the wrong one.
Shapol and his co-founder built four reusable rocket missions before they turned to data centres. Their conclusion: the most critical infrastructure on the planet is still being operated with Word documents, printed manuals, and procedures written by hand weeks in advance - documents that are rarely updated as hardware changes, and that rely entirely on humans not making mistakes.
Entangl ingests every design document, every circuit, every asset, and produces step-by-step operating instructions deterministically. Same input, same output, every time — like an aircraft autopilot. No variability. No hallucinations. Because in infrastructure AI, hallucination is not a feature. It is a catastrophic failure.
This episode covers:
- Why 18-month generator lead times force data centres to operate without backup power, and what that means for the next outage
- How Entangl's system detects every asset in a data centre, generates every possible operating procedure automatically, and updates them in real time as hardware changes
- Deterministic vs generative AI: why ChatGPT-style creativity is exactly what you do not want in a system that controls whether hospitals stay online
- The Dunning-Kruger problem in data centre operations: why experienced engineers are often the most dangerous ones
- VR training: how engineers learn to work on live systems without touching them
- The Challenger framing: do humans always have the final say, and should they?
- Space-based data centres: Shapol is in the same YC cohort as Star Cloud and refers them directly. His view on when heavy industry moves off Earth
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TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Trailer
(02:17) From rocket launches to data center automation
(06:00) How Entangl integrates with building monitoring systems
(08:34) Data Center Design constraints: How AI fixes it
(15:37) AI, Dunning Kruger And Hallucinations
(21:42) Will humans always have the final say in data centers?
(24:53) Space-based data centers and solar power
(25:04) Kevin Kelly's question: What should humans become?
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