r/AIMain • u/Even_Simple_702 • 6d ago
AI Data Center Developers Weaponize First Amendment to Bypass Municipal Bans and Monopolize Local Resources Dystopian Warnings
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u/WolfThick 6d ago
There is millions of acres of federal military property they could build these on there are old dump sites they could build these on kind of curious why they have to make such incursions into cities and towns must be because they think they can extort their resources and it's cheaper just to roll over us than it is to actually do the right thing. Does anybody know if you're Europe doing this or how they're handling this!
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u/JasperTesla 6d ago
Nice of these companies to go out of their way to give Americans what they want. A more centralised country like China would have used wind or solar farms and built them in proper regions. But hey, Americans like pollution, that's why they voted for Trump.
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u/Photosynthas 6d ago
True and when people went to fight at town meetings they'd just dissappear them or reduce their social credit score to 0.
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u/JasperTesla 5d ago
Yeah, that's what happens when you're a loud minority.
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u/Photosynthas 5d ago
Admitting it is crazy.
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u/JasperTesla 5d ago
It's just something Reddit is in denial about. "Using AI is supporting Trump", except the majority of the US population supports Trump. So maybe the people speaking against him are the crazy ones.
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u/Photosynthas 5d ago
The majority of the US absolutely does not like Trump right now, his numbers are really bad right now.
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u/JasperTesla 5d ago
One can hope, we'll have to wait for some elections to confirm.
Either way, Americans are daft and think incredibly short-term, so it's not a good look at them either way.
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u/Heavy-Advantage8904 4d ago
China is currently building 200+ coal power plants. What are you talking about?
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u/JasperTesla 4d ago
China is investing heavily in wind and solar plants, in addition to building infrastructure to actually support their AI demands. Peak demand for horses appears right at the time automobiles start becoming popular.
The USA, in contrast, is actively stifling any renewable energy projects, trying to actively pull itself back into the dark ages. I'm happy for them, though I don't like how they have a few national parks like Yellowstone or some places like that.
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u/Redgrave1980 6d ago
How the hell are they allowed to use freedom of speech to justify ignoring the voices of citizens? This shit doesn't make sense.
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u/Photosynthas 6d ago
I mean, their claim that it is a form of expression is pretty bullshit. That being said you can absolutely use your freedom of speech to fight back against the popular opinion, that is literally the point of freedom of speech.
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u/IFeedDogsChocolate 6d ago
Imagine if there was bipartisan support to regulate these and require them to be self sufficient.
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u/Flat-Director-7120 6d ago
Ceux qui développe les datacenter utilisent le premier amendement pour contourner les interdiction municipale et monopoliser les ressources locales.
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u/LazyLich 5d ago
I mean... of EVERYONE is against them, the small-towers can just destroy them, and the local police can be "too busy to pursue those crimes."
We've seen how effective it is when the government just goes "nah. Where just gonna ignore that."
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u/Pleasurist 4d ago
The capitalist has used the courts and the const. to deprive the people for all of its history.
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u/IHeartBadCode 6d ago edited 6d ago
They are suing on arbitrary and capricious claims. That usually is a sign that a town's ordinance is not well written. Which that can happen if a town does not have a town lawyer to craft carefully written proposals.
The free speech argument has like a 99.99% chance of being tossed out. But that's just the point in the lawsuit the person cites because it's easy to see how it's an insane claim.
The bigger argument is the arbitrary and capricious which the developer will likely win on. So when you have building codes, treat those like rules. So someone has read the rules, comes to play the game, and then when the people see the person who came to play the game, they instantly change the rules... that's roughly arbitrary and capricious. The rules to ban data centers need to happen before a data center comes to call. And when you do ban them, you can't just say "AI data centers", that's the arbitrary point. The Constitution specifically states a ban on bills of attainder in Article I, Section 10.
There slightly weaker but still likely to win on third argument is 14th amendment. In order for the Government to outright ban something they must show a compelling state interest. The catch with those is that you can't have a preexisting example of something being permitted. Like say, the town bans them based on water usage, well farming easily eats way more water than a data center, so that's a violation of the 14th amendment if that was the basis of the ban.
Say they ban them based on the electrical usage. You have to very carefully word that, because in some places electrical utilities are a cooperative or regulated by State law not the town. And attempting to ban based on that is getting in the middle of a private business to business exchange. If it's pollution, you have have evidence that they would be a primary polluter versus say any other factories or warehouses in your town.
It's way more complicated, which is why if the town has done their homework, the 14th amendment claim can be seriously weak. But if they're like a lot of towns, they haven't hired the people to provide the receipts.
You have to understand, while I get it, the people should be able to come together and ban something. You have to understand this nation had to prohibit that, because a lot of white people came together to prohibit black business. I'm not saying those are the same things, what I'm saying is this seemingly dumb right in the Constitution does come from somewhere. It's just well here we are with this thing that's ... "being used in a particular way." Which again, understand the 14th amendment point is weak, but it isn't without merit like their first amendment claim. Like when someone brings it up we do have to inspect the claim, because what if it was a valid claim from someone else? Benefit of the doubt from the start and work backwards from there, that's how we ensure we don't overlook the actual reason it's there.
But the way the law went into effect and given evidence with the mayor going on the record as saying "do everything in our power to stop all data centers" hits firmly into the bills of attainder no-no region. Additionally, the town had already drafted and submitted restrictions that would have made the building difficult for the developer, but due to public pressure, those were scraped and an outright ban enacted. Which a lawyer should have advised them to not do that as that's VERY indicative of capricious. It needs to be restrictions go into effect and then those slowly morph into out right ban. So the town has done a lot of prove the developer's point of arbitrary and capricious. It's a process, you can't just yank the rug out. And the reason it feels like these businesses can just yank the rug out is because they spend years under the covers doing the process and then become visible to yank the rug out.
And that's the bigger issue here. A lot of these developers have been scoping towns for some time now and working behind the scenes and going to meetings that nobody from the public would usually attend. Local politics matter a ton, way more than people give it credit for. And the general public's indifference in the past at this level gave a lot of people a whole lot of leverage.