Colossus 1 datacenter is the one using illegal power, is poisoning the air for poor communities near Memphis, and is potentially poisoning the water. It's likely the additional demand on the grid will cause massive blackouts during extreme weather events, putting residents at further risk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(supercomputer)#Envir...

So you can put Anthropic on your list of companies that like to talk big about safety, but when the rubber hits the road, profits matter more than safety.

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boldlybold 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Illegal is a strong term here. While the wiki link you included indicates there might be some permitting nuances, I've seen nothing claiming the power is "illegal."

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Thrymr an hour ago | parent | next [-]

xAI removed its illegal gas turbines and obtained permits for the others only after being sued by the Southern Environmental Law Center. They then built another unpermitted site (Colossus 2) across the state line in Mississippi, and they are being sued again. [0]

"The company began operations at its first site, Colossus 1, in June of 2024 and used as many as 35 unpermitted gas turbines to power the facility. Despite receiving intense public pushback over the use of illegal turbines and the lack of public input and transparency around Colossus 1, xAI officials said it planned on “copying and pasting” its unlawful turbine strategy to power Colossus 2."

"xAI removed its unpermitted turbines at the Colossus 1 data center after SELC, on behalf of the NAACP, sent a notice of intent to sue under the Clean Air Act. The company obtained permits for its remaining 15 turbines."

[0] https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...

	▲	BrianGragg 15 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		How is a private company running a natural gas generator any different than a public power utility running a natural gas generator? Besides in this case one paid the 'tax' and the other delayed in doing so?... Nothing changed to the environment good or bad from paying the government their 'tax' (permit fee)....
	▲	everfrustrated an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[flagged]

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fancyfredbot 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The ethics are questionable, legal or not. Anthropic are tarnishing their image again here.

Not sure how much it hurts then compared to blocking openclaw though.

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ETH_start 8 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not every allegation that appears in print is true. One should be very skeptical about these kinds of allegations, especially when there are deep-pocketed corporations involved who can be sued or pressured to settle in the face of sufficiently "plausible and persistent" (to borrow Hazlitt's term) claims of harm done by their operations.

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causal 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So I was just Googling this, and apparently most datacenters don't pay any state tax on revenue generated by said datacenter? Huge loophole if true, no wonder capital investment in datacenters is so high. [0]

[0] https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/regulations/how-are-data...

	▲	polski-g 41 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I like how you said "googling this", but then didn't actually read the article you linked.

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MagicMoonlight 29 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

How would a data centre poison the water? They don’t produce any chemicals or do anything.