Amazon circumvents Gilroy community vote for AI data center

▲ Amazon circumvents Gilroy community vote for AI data center(tomshardware.com)

22 points by mikhael 42 minutes ago | 7 comments

▲ thenewnewguy 11 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Bias Disclaimer: Amazon pays my salary currently, although my job doesn't have anything to do with datacenter construction.

Maybe I missed it, but the article doesn't seem to say what the "circumvention"/"loophole" that Amazon used was? It seems like Amazon went through the correct city permitting/legal processes years ago, and now residents want to complain about it years later because data centers are this year's culture war hot topic?

Like if Amazon followed the official process here, what's the problem? At some point you have to declare an approval final and allow a company to move forward with construction.

	▲	ovao 5 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That was my read as well: > ...the site had gone through a long approval process, which required public notices and public-comment periods. However, when Gilroy resident Rosa Rodriguez wanted to state her concern about the damage a data center can do to a region suffering from drought, she was told that the comment period had already lapsed in 2024 Is the "circumvention" the headline refers to that public commentary periods are time-boxed? But how could they not be time-boxed? In fairness to the residents, the negative implications of data centers was probably not well known to them in 2024, but it seems to me that (at least based on the article) all the processes & rules were followed.
	▲	neucoas 4 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> now residents want to complain about it years later because data centers are this year's culture war hot topic I hope one day Amazon or any AI company installs a data center next to your home. Then you will finally understand

▲ rvz 18 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So when it comes down to choice and where to park the money: The votes of humans matter less than the power of AI agents.

Amazon believes that the AI agents need a new home more than humans do and would rather build homes for these agents than for humans.

But of course, the advantages are obvious to them:

1) 24/7 intelligence when you need it.

2) Tokens can be generated cheaply, meaning lots of work for 1 / 100th of the price of a human.

3) Knowledge can stay with the agent and will never leave the company and the agent has no breaks or weekends.

No wonder Amazon saw something like this, wanted it so badly and ignored humans to build more homes for c̶l̶a̶n̶k̶e̶r̶s̶ AI agents. Such a sad state of affairs.

▲ PunchyHamster 32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I think at that point solution is to show up with demolition equipment and just go "we're enforcing our democratic vote"

▲ frogperson 15 minutes ago | parent [-]

the police and entire justice system are on the side of capital. The peoples history of the united States by Howard Zinn covers many attempts Luke this. he makes a case for what works and what doesn't. its a large book, but you can find good summaries online.

	▲	akagusu 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		`> the police and entire justice system are on the side of capital` This entire system was created by the capital for the capital.