While organisations are only ever hit with affordable financial penalties, it's rational for them to weigh up the likely penalty vs. the opportunity cost of not doing something illegal in their decision-making.
If we want to prevent such behaviour (and in case it's not clear from the above, I think we should) then we either need far more brutally punative financial penalties, or for executives to be held personally and criminally liable in such cases.
1. There isn't even a penalty. Journalists literally had to fly drones with thermal imaging to prove the gas turbines were indeed on. Then some non-profits had to use their own money to file a lawsuit
2. Corruption could get even the lawsuit kicked out:
> Enter the Federal Government and the Department of Justice, who pushed the courts to dismiss the suit as a matter of national security, stating that the xAI models were needed for "artificial-intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations." So, residents are left without legal means of contesting these developments, barring individual claims and damages.
I was speaking more generally, but yes, in the increasingly dystopian world of the current US administration, it seems to be even easier for certain people and companies to ignore the law altogether.
There's also other options than brutally punitive financial penalties or holding execs personally responsible.
For example, if a data center is illegally running gas turbines, the penalty could be that the data center must be shut down for 3 years and no equipment can be removed from the data center during that time.
With financial penalties, there's always calculus on whether the penalty is high enough to deter the action. But the only reason they'd want to, for example, use illegal power generators at a data center is to run the data center. Losing access to 100% of the value of that data center for 3 years would make the calculus easy: it wouldn't be worth it for the companies. They'd lose the entire reason for doing it and so much of the capital investment in equipment as it depreciated during those 3 years.
With AI companies believing the market is worth trillions, it's hard to imagine a financial penalty high enough to deter illegal actions. It might need to be in the hundreds of billions - a level which they probably can't pay given their current resources and which governments wouldn't levy. Not that they'll essentially confiscate a data center and its hardware for multiple years as a penalty either.
I agree with almost everything you wrote, but... confiscation and inability to operate at a location (as you suggest as a penalty) still ultimately boils down to a financial penalty for an organisation. It feels especially severe in this case (law breaking by a data center operator) because of the high cost and high depreciation rate of GPUs and supporting hardware.
If you take a different field of business, you can still imagine an organisation making the calculation that operation for a period of time --before their illegality was discovered and then acted upon by the authorities-- would still be worthwhile even if confiscation was the end result. (In some odd cases, this is close to the actual business model.)
If you want to deter hyper-rich companies, you could shift to fining them a meaningful percentage of their annual turnover or even their market capitalisation.
Another school of thought is that punishment should be proportional to the crime or harm.
Something isn't really a big deal, it doesn't make sense to stick it to a company.
This is better at balancing the public interest of legal compliance against the public interest in the product the company provides.
It's basically the same trade-off with set in criminal punishments in general. If we made it it the death penalty for jaywalking or littering, we would have a lot less of it. Seems like a slam dunk right? Why don't we just do that?
> Another school of thought is that punishment should be proportional to the crime or harm.
Maybe harm * wealth. Rich people could be fined proportionally more than poor people. Rich companies (turnover, market cap?) could be fined proportionally more too.
> In the latest example of corporations existing outside of the law, SpaceX (who is for some reason the controlling entity of xAI now) announced they'll be removing the illegal, unpermitted gas turbines they've been running at their Memphis Colossus data center... by July 2027.
This is the thing the HN crowd doesn't seem to get whenever a post is on here about data centers. They are often times doing outright illegal things and we simply don't have the mechanisms to punish "white collar crime" the way we punish other crime. The populist uprising against them is happening because people have tried everything else first
Of course that’s a silly turn of phrase but there is a grain of truth.
Most people believe that the law should mirror the ethics or morality of the society, and absent something clearly harmful, most people don’t understand why something with nobody clearly harmed should be illegal.
Are you really out here stanning white collar crimes? The reason this is ok is because people aren’t angry enough about it? Your comment absolutely boggles the mind.
I have still never taken an Uber. I have always used taxis and I like them more because of the regulations. The difference is cost is minimal now because the taxis had to adjust their rates to remain in business.
“Move fast and break things”. That was the gospel of Facebook that drove an entire industry and was preached by every entrepreneur in existence. So now that it’s applied on a global scale the things that are broken are society itself. Well we reap what we sow.
Similarly, I have a rant from last night [0] which connects it to Federal versus State laws and enforcements.
> TLDR: Corrupt crooks have sabotaged the normal careful legal-compromise route, so they are partly to blame when American communities seek hard-line measures instead.
Or even state vs local. These developers have a LOT of money and often use it to pass state level legislation that prevents cities or counties from having a say in these projects.
Take Hood County where a Texas senator prevented them from considering a construction pause. Or West Virginia’s Power Generation and Consumption Act which completely banned local government oversight. Or Georgia’s HB 1059 Siting Mandates. I could go on and on but the point here is the playing field is not level. These data centers often have the power to completely skirt local zoning laws and regulation. And even when they do it illegally, there's rarely any consequences
>we simply don't have the mechanisms to punish "white collar crime" the way we punish other crime.
Sure we do. We just don't use those mechanisms because the law doesn't move fast enough. That 7/2027 deadline was probably calculated as being not worth it to pursue legal damages for since court fights work slowly.
Now closing up those "stalling" loopholes... I don't know enough about the justice system to really make a judgement call on that.
> They are often times doing outright illegal things and we simply don't have the mechanisms to punish "white collar crime" the way we punish other crime.
I mean it depends what you mean by "we". There are laws on the books to do so, they've just never been used against Epstein associates like Musk. We have a surface system of politics and laws, and then a deep system. Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.
> The Colossus I Data Center was brought online in 122 days from breaking ground to operation. Some hail that as an achievement, but others (like myself) see it as a brutal pace to avoid having to answer pesky questions like "How will this affect the nearby area?" and "What sort of mitigation plans to do you have for the data center's waste?" The data center is powered by dozens of unpermitted gas turbines, which they initially refused to acknowledge were running until journalists and groups used thermal imaging to prove they were indeed on and spewing toxins into the air (including smog, formaldehyde, and other nasty things). This resulted in a suit from the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) on behalf of the NAACP for violations of the Clean Air Act. Their claim was that the company operated without public oversight or accountability for these illegal constructions and sought legal stoppage until proper accounting can be done of the effects of said turbines.
This is what I'm talking about. A non-profit and random journalists shouldn't be the ones holding them accountable in the first place. And a "lawsuit" is hardly accountability either. People need to go to prison for white collar crime.
> Enter the Federal Government and the Department of Justice, who pushed the courts to dismiss the suit as a matter of national security, stating that the xAI models were needed for "artificial-intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations." So, residents are left without legal means of contesting these developments, barring individual claims and damages.
And this is the reason why a "lawsuit" isn't accountability. When the company can just pay some politicians to get it dismissed.
The federal government has tons of power but I'm like 99% sure the process for exercising it isn't "send a note to the courts saying this illegal stuff is actually super important for war n stuff" and then they just get lawsuits thrown out... right?
Oh I fully agree, if it wasn't clear I am supporting the most radical conclusions you could possibly take from your original comment. I hope that wasn't you downvoting, and just the bots that activate whenever you mention a certain New York financier.
I didn't downvote your comment. I assume it's the same bots that flagged this post immediately. Call me a tinfoil hatter, but I've come to the belief that the data center lobbyists likely have bot armies to alert them there's negative discussions around data centers going on on HN
>> The populist uprising against them is happening because people have tried everything else first
From everything I've seen the populist uprising is happening because 99% of the people shouting don't know anything about data centers other than "bad".
> unpermitted gas turbines they've been running at their Memphis Colossus data center
Just a reminder that when you're building a business, having land and a datacenter ready and cannot be switched on, with idle staff, costs the business money.
xAI could only draw 7-8MW from the grid and needed to run 10s of 1000s of H1000s. They shipped in 15 gas turbines as a more permanent onsite power plant while TVA/MLGW worked on expanding the grid supply to 150-300MW.
So you can get upset at musk all you want, but he has a business to run, and waiting for a full grid build out isn't practical.
I'm going to be blunt; this is a wildly bad-faith argument. You started the quote right after the important word: illegal.
> the illegal, unpermitted gas turbines they've been running at their Memphis Colossus data center
Illegal. These turbines are illegal. What xAI under Musk's direction is doing is illegal. A business that must break the law to be practical isn't a business, it's a criminal organization operating by hurting people (which is WHY it's illegal to run gas turbines like this), and both it and those running it must be held accountable.
You're arguing that it's fine to break the law if it would otherwise cost a business money. I don't accept that, and nobody else in this community should either.
No. Calling it illegal is just something people do because they hate musk. They fell into a loop hole and had no permits as they were technically allowed if they stayed in 1 spot for less than 364 days. EPA later determined they did not qualify and required permits, permits were later granted.
Musk operated in a grey area to run his business to avoid having an idle data center while other people dragged their feet.
I purposely cut off `illegal` because calling it `illegal` was bad faith to begin with. But it's not unexpected that musk haters will come out raising banners in protest.
So you can get upset at all you want, but I have a business to run, and waiting in traffic isn't practical - i just drove through all the people in the way.
Of course the government has permission to punish crime. However government officials might find themselves in a courtroom having to demonstrate how they applied the law equally, and would be subject to discovery to see if they were being corruptly influenced (there is organization and international funding for the anti-data center movement in the US”; there is very little grassroots opposition other than typical NIMBYism you see in all development projects).
And the government would have to pay to fight and might be on the hook if they lost.
And “clearly breaking the law” isn’t always clear; I don’t k ow anything about this particular case but it sounds like zoning or applying utility laws to non-utility companies or environmental regulations being used to make construction financially untenable. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for opposition to off-grid natural gas turbines; you don’t get much cleaner off grid power that works 24x7.
> government officials might find themselves in a courtroom having to demonstrate how they applied the law equally
The government has no obligation to apply the law equally, although they are prohibited from applying the law unequally to achieve certain discriminatory aims.
“Applied the law equally” referred to politicians- did they allow something in some cases but not others, eg “selective enforcement”.
Your response was “I’d like to live in your world”, implying that you believe that it’s rarely the case that people can get government officials on the stand. That’s true for most people, but not true for people with deep pockets for lawyers.
I brought up Musk because Starlink was mentioned as the data center owner.
I do believe that you get more justice if you can afford to fight the government on its own terms in a courtroom. I don’t celebrate that.
> However government officials might find themselves in a courtroom having to demonstrate how they applied the law equally, and would be subject to discovery to see if they were being corruptly influenced (there is organization and international funding for the anti-data center movement in the US”
> Americans hate data centers. They really, really hate them.
A Gallup poll from May found that 71 percent of Americans would oppose a data center being built in their area. In rural communities in Utah and North Carolina, regular people are organizing to stop data center construction, speaking out at public hearings and pressuring politicians for bans....
> According to polling by Heatmap News, more than half of all Americans support a national ban on data centers. The public seems to agree that data centers are giant, ugly, noisy, smelly altars to industrial-scale hostile architecture. In our virulently partisan country, this constitutes a rare show of consensus.
Hi all, pleasantly surprised to see my own article posted to HN before I did! I did space to push anything out about this for the most part, so thank you to speckx.
Anyway, happy to see the understanding reception here, I think it's worth continuing to drive home that these data centers have immediate impacts on the areas around them, which are disproportionately minorities and poor.
If you liked this article there's plenty more on my website, and feel free to ask any questions.
Oh - I was and still am absolutely against Uber's tactics in expanding to cities. I still do not use Uber unless I travel to countries where that's the only option.
Yes, a lot of startups are only successful because what they are doing suddenly isn't illegal anymore because it's being done with an app. Cory Doctorow has written about this in his book Enshittification
I think we're far past calling the 7th largest stock on the S&P owned by the richest man in the world a "startup". Startups can't do something like this at scale.
The moderation here typically leans to whatever generates the most curious discussion, rather than sticking with inflammatory titles, even if it's what the author intends. In some way, I trust HN to become the "editors" of the internet in a sense, as they have everyone's best interest in heart of course.
As the legendary PG once wrote: "What are you excessively curious about — curious to a degree that would bore most other people? That's what you're looking for"
> In some way, I trust HN to become the "editors" of the internet in a sense, as they have everyone's best interest in heart of course.
That's a dangerous mentality. Comments can be removed or lagged, but never edited. I feel the same about headlines. It's ultimate an artistic choice and I don't like the feeling of someone altering a headline to soften the blow. Especially to a trillion dollar company.
>What are you excessively curious about — curious to a degree that would bore most other people?
solely about the FSD part of your comment. I got a chance to ride in a 2024 edition of the system this year and I was shocked at how good it was. Was it level 5? of course not. But from my very lay understanding of level 3 it seemd to have achieved all that I would have assumed a computer could reasonably do.
None of that matters, unless you can buy a Tesla with FSD enabled. This has been promised so many times, for so many years, that it's become a bit of a joke.
You realize there are fully autonomous waymo cabs operating at "level 4" in several regions... today. Anybody can download the app and ride in them now.
Google didn't go around promising this "next year" every year for the last decade. They just went out and did the work to make the product work, and released it.
I do realize that. I'm not making a comparative judgement here. I'm mentioning that fsd as a feature is pretty amazing to me. Elon does over promise, but seems to at least partially deliver (as opposed to total vaporware).
You are behind, FSD is already here, my car drove me to work today (fully self driving)
Starlink v3 satelites launch next month, the first starmind sats based nvidia chips sometime next year, large new factories for the needed solar panels are already half built outside of bastrop texas
This is being needlessly pedantic. Disdain for the rights of other people does not start and end at literal written regulations.
And yeah, on some level it's not strictly relevant to the exact legal question being discussed, but part of the purpose of an article is to give you reasons to give a shit about what's being reported.
> but part of the purpose of an article is to give you reasons to give a shit about what's being reported.
And this is where the article is trying to bias the readers.
As I said elsewhere: If this article was "Elon Musk is a shitty guy, and look at all the shitty stuff he does", I'd have no objection to any of this. Present all the examples, make the case, and let the reader decide.
But showing someone violating the law, and then pointing out possible other unrelated violations, you're trying to bias the reader.
If this were on trial and I were on the jury, and the prosecutor used such tactics, I'd be biased against the prosecution. There's a very good reason defense attorneys get judges to rule that such stuff can not be presented to the jurors.
So nobody can report facts if it makes the subject of an article look bad (or good)? This idea of unbiased reporting that you have is ridiculous. This isn't a court of law, and not everything needs to rise to that standard.
If you want something free of bias, go read an NTSB report. Even then, that's not a guarantee!!
Stories that involve peoples' motivations and politics are never free of bias. The fact that you think this is possible might betray some bias of your own.
> So nobody can report facts if it makes the subject of an article look bad (or good)?
If the specified goal of the article is to make the subject look bad, then of course it's fine. I've said that in many comments, and I say it again here.
The issue is only one side of the bias makes the HN front page. Absolute foaming at the mouth nonsensical "articles" about Tesla with terrible predictions, sometimes just outright fake news that someone just made up which BlueSky, Reddit, BlueAnon and HN just lap up, which cheapens HN.
What evidence is there of Musk's competency? Actual testimony that he has provided input that has led to revenue (or some more indirect form of success)? We can all hold and spend money; I'll admit his purchase of SpaceX was intelligent. But outside of that one decision, where is his supposed genius?
They actually think Musk bought SpaceX. If you try to correct such facts on Reddit, you get downvoted and/or permabanned by mods. Same on BlueSky. Sometimes even on here, it's a religion.
The things you're calling irrelevant actually flout a number of regulations in various jurisdictions, if your read news about xAI you should be familiar with the examples.
Yes, I in fact do. Same mentality. "It's only 5 above that's legal", "what use is 6 miles above".
It just creeps in and next thing you know you're complaining about a ticket despite going 15 above. "But everyone else is doing it". No self-reflection, only deflection.
We used to have a factor called "work ethic" to judge people on because once upon a time we recognized that such behavior is contagious. In both good and bad ways. A hard worker will probably pick up an adjacent job quickly. A slacker who otherwise gets stuff done is less likely to. This behavior is no different.
I'll bite. The title is about ignoring regulations related to a data center. How is any of what I quoted relevant?
If the article were about Elon Musk's racist views, then by all means I'd be fine with it. But his (or Grok's) racism is irrelevant to the laws he is violating. Would it be OK if a well respected billionaire flouted those laws?
You don't think it's relevant to discuss what has been done with the resources from breaking these regulations? I think it's very relevant to the article. If this was about building illegal gas turbines to power cancer research, I think you would have a different perspective on the article.
And yes, I would be equally critical of any article that talks about someone violating laws with their data center, and that tries to list the positives coming out of the data center as a mitigating factor. It isn't one.
Not really, its a valid way to manage ones time, because if you deem the message to not be I the quality you expect, you can just find a better article.
There is plenty of the world that doesn't behave this way.
Flipping it around: Can you tell me why I need to interact with such articles? What did I lose by not reading it? I can certainly tell you what I gained.
>These racks are needed to keep up with the ballooning requirements of each new "frontier" (a buzzword label with no actual inclination of performance of improvement) model developed, which everyone bought into the AI hype will immediately hop to because it's all novelty over utility.
This is a mind-blowingly clueless assertion. This is not a person capable of rationally assessing facts. At best this kind of writing is interesting as an artifict of human delusion and cognitive bias.
> This is a mind-blowingly clueless assertion. This is not a person capable of rationally assessing facts. At best this kind of writing is interesting as an artifict of human delusion and cognitive bias.
How do you figure? This description would be best applied to you:
* Musk both wildly wealthy because of his popularity and simultaneously incompetent
* Musk and other investors have made boatloads of money off the promise that specifically american, boutique LLMs will deliver labor savings. in his case spaces, but it's indistinguishable from similar frauds such as eg openai, anthropic, etc
* Musk's properties will likely collapse unless they can find new revenue or investors.
Musk can only grift so many people before his bottom falls out
This isn't a formal publication. This is the type of post that used to be celebrated in hacker culture. The type of post that purposefully flounders respectability politics even if it's just for aesthetic forms of rebellion. Clearly it's offending the type of people it meant to :)
The applications are not tangential, they're an irreplaceable tool the hyperscalers relied on to get us where we are now. Pollution is bad but it's a different story if it's curing cancer vs making nudes of female politicians. This is like the fundamental principle of effective altruism, which everyone in tech industry leadership used to justify their negative externalities on the way up. Now that they're being asked to show results it's out the window.
I mean, that's the good faith argument anyways. I suspect you don't actually care, and just also believe in South African white genocide etc.
> Pollution is bad but it's a different story if it's curing cancer vs making nudes of female politicians.
Completely disagree. That sort of reasoning is why plenty of African Americans were forcibly moved from their own properties in the 20th century. "The land will be put to great use!" (And in a lot of cases, it was - still wrong).
(I also disagree, I'm just using it to argue with the guy above claiming it's irrelevant)
Within your metaphor, the person I'm replying to would say "I did nothing to stop the land theft because I found it annoying how people made irrelevant arguments about what the land would be used for". Really calls into question if their real position is what they say it is.
> Within your metaphor, the person I'm replying to would say "I did nothing to stop the land theft because I found it annoying how people made irrelevant arguments about what the land would be used for". Really calls into question if their real position is what they say it is.
You can introduce that person to the concept of "strawman".
Not reading an article does not equate to any of the following: Support, Opposition, Neutrality, Apathy, Indifference.
Hard to call them "irrelevant details" when they are facts, and that this data center is specifically used to run this AI for anti-semitic, pro-Hitler, and CSAM content. It would be bad enough if the data center was used to research cures to cancer, but instead it is creating nudes of children.
Facts and "irrelevant details" are not mutually exclusive.
> It would be bad enough if the data center was used to research cures to cancer, but instead it is creating nudes of children.
Sorry, but what it is being used for is irrelevant to whether it is flouting the laws.
As I said in my original comment, the reason I stopped reading was because the language was trying to bias readers. And as the responses show, they sure as Hell did.
It seems critical reading is becoming a lost skill.
> Creating widespread non-consensual nude images of primarily women and children
That is an example of ignoring laws and regulations. So that is certainly relevant as context to the current case where the company is ignoring laws and regulations.
While organisations are only ever hit with affordable financial penalties, it's rational for them to weigh up the likely penalty vs. the opportunity cost of not doing something illegal in their decision-making.
If we want to prevent such behaviour (and in case it's not clear from the above, I think we should) then we either need far more brutally punative financial penalties, or for executives to be held personally and criminally liable in such cases.
If you read the article you see that
1. There isn't even a penalty. Journalists literally had to fly drones with thermal imaging to prove the gas turbines were indeed on. Then some non-profits had to use their own money to file a lawsuit
2. Corruption could get even the lawsuit kicked out:
> Enter the Federal Government and the Department of Justice, who pushed the courts to dismiss the suit as a matter of national security, stating that the xAI models were needed for "artificial-intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations." So, residents are left without legal means of contesting these developments, barring individual claims and damages.
I was speaking more generally, but yes, in the increasingly dystopian world of the current US administration, it seems to be even easier for certain people and companies to ignore the law altogether.
There's also other options than brutally punitive financial penalties or holding execs personally responsible.
For example, if a data center is illegally running gas turbines, the penalty could be that the data center must be shut down for 3 years and no equipment can be removed from the data center during that time.
With financial penalties, there's always calculus on whether the penalty is high enough to deter the action. But the only reason they'd want to, for example, use illegal power generators at a data center is to run the data center. Losing access to 100% of the value of that data center for 3 years would make the calculus easy: it wouldn't be worth it for the companies. They'd lose the entire reason for doing it and so much of the capital investment in equipment as it depreciated during those 3 years.
With AI companies believing the market is worth trillions, it's hard to imagine a financial penalty high enough to deter illegal actions. It might need to be in the hundreds of billions - a level which they probably can't pay given their current resources and which governments wouldn't levy. Not that they'll essentially confiscate a data center and its hardware for multiple years as a penalty either.
I agree with almost everything you wrote, but... confiscation and inability to operate at a location (as you suggest as a penalty) still ultimately boils down to a financial penalty for an organisation. It feels especially severe in this case (law breaking by a data center operator) because of the high cost and high depreciation rate of GPUs and supporting hardware.
If you take a different field of business, you can still imagine an organisation making the calculation that operation for a period of time --before their illegality was discovered and then acted upon by the authorities-- would still be worthwhile even if confiscation was the end result. (In some odd cases, this is close to the actual business model.)
If you want to deter hyper-rich companies, you could shift to fining them a meaningful percentage of their annual turnover or even their market capitalisation.
Another school of thought is that punishment should be proportional to the crime or harm.
Something isn't really a big deal, it doesn't make sense to stick it to a company.
This is better at balancing the public interest of legal compliance against the public interest in the product the company provides.
It's basically the same trade-off with set in criminal punishments in general. If we made it it the death penalty for jaywalking or littering, we would have a lot less of it. Seems like a slam dunk right? Why don't we just do that?
> Another school of thought is that punishment should be proportional to the crime or harm.
Maybe harm * wealth. Rich people could be fined proportionally more than poor people. Rich companies (turnover, market cap?) could be fined proportionally more too.
> In the latest example of corporations existing outside of the law, SpaceX (who is for some reason the controlling entity of xAI now) announced they'll be removing the illegal, unpermitted gas turbines they've been running at their Memphis Colossus data center... by July 2027.
This is the thing the HN crowd doesn't seem to get whenever a post is on here about data centers. They are often times doing outright illegal things and we simply don't have the mechanisms to punish "white collar crime" the way we punish other crime. The populist uprising against them is happening because people have tried everything else first
The HN crowd that doesn't seem to get it is like that because they're either white collar criminals themselves, or they work for such criminals.
"It's only a crime because it's against the law." - someone, inevitably
Of course that’s a silly turn of phrase but there is a grain of truth.
Most people believe that the law should mirror the ethics or morality of the society, and absent something clearly harmful, most people don’t understand why something with nobody clearly harmed should be illegal.
"Why should you go to jail for a crime someone else ... noticed" — Bob Loblaw
> It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
— Upton Sinclair
Yes, and big part of it is public is ok with that. For example, did you protest while Uber was breaking many local laws while growing?
Are you really out here stanning white collar crimes? The reason this is ok is because people aren’t angry enough about it? Your comment absolutely boggles the mind.
> Yes, and big part of it is public is ok with that. For example, did you protest while Uber was breaking many local laws while growing?
I never supported what Uber, either. Why would you assume anyone did?
I have still never taken an Uber. I have always used taxis and I like them more because of the regulations. The difference is cost is minimal now because the taxis had to adjust their rates to remain in business.
Lots of people did complain or actively take steps to punish them for lawbreaking, yeah?
What? Do you think that public opinion drives prosecution decisions?
If that were true, no one would go to jail for marijuana possession.
“Move fast and break things”. That was the gospel of Facebook that drove an entire industry and was preached by every entrepreneur in existence. So now that it’s applied on a global scale the things that are broken are society itself. Well we reap what we sow.
Similarly, I have a rant from last night [0] which connects it to Federal versus State laws and enforcements.
> TLDR: Corrupt crooks have sabotaged the normal careful legal-compromise route, so they are partly to blame when American communities seek hard-line measures instead.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49193606
Or even state vs local. These developers have a LOT of money and often use it to pass state level legislation that prevents cities or counties from having a say in these projects.
Take Hood County where a Texas senator prevented them from considering a construction pause. Or West Virginia’s Power Generation and Consumption Act which completely banned local government oversight. Or Georgia’s HB 1059 Siting Mandates. I could go on and on but the point here is the playing field is not level. These data centers often have the power to completely skirt local zoning laws and regulation. And even when they do it illegally, there's rarely any consequences
>we simply don't have the mechanisms to punish "white collar crime" the way we punish other crime.
Sure we do. We just don't use those mechanisms because the law doesn't move fast enough. That 7/2027 deadline was probably calculated as being not worth it to pursue legal damages for since court fights work slowly.
Now closing up those "stalling" loopholes... I don't know enough about the justice system to really make a judgement call on that.
> They are often times doing outright illegal things and we simply don't have the mechanisms to punish "white collar crime" the way we punish other crime.
Do we punish other crimes?
I mean it depends what you mean by "we". There are laws on the books to do so, they've just never been used against Epstein associates like Musk. We have a surface system of politics and laws, and then a deep system. Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.
> The Colossus I Data Center was brought online in 122 days from breaking ground to operation. Some hail that as an achievement, but others (like myself) see it as a brutal pace to avoid having to answer pesky questions like "How will this affect the nearby area?" and "What sort of mitigation plans to do you have for the data center's waste?" The data center is powered by dozens of unpermitted gas turbines, which they initially refused to acknowledge were running until journalists and groups used thermal imaging to prove they were indeed on and spewing toxins into the air (including smog, formaldehyde, and other nasty things). This resulted in a suit from the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) on behalf of the NAACP for violations of the Clean Air Act. Their claim was that the company operated without public oversight or accountability for these illegal constructions and sought legal stoppage until proper accounting can be done of the effects of said turbines.
This is what I'm talking about. A non-profit and random journalists shouldn't be the ones holding them accountable in the first place. And a "lawsuit" is hardly accountability either. People need to go to prison for white collar crime.
> Enter the Federal Government and the Department of Justice, who pushed the courts to dismiss the suit as a matter of national security, stating that the xAI models were needed for "artificial-intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations." So, residents are left without legal means of contesting these developments, barring individual claims and damages.
And this is the reason why a "lawsuit" isn't accountability. When the company can just pay some politicians to get it dismissed.
The federal government has tons of power but I'm like 99% sure the process for exercising it isn't "send a note to the courts saying this illegal stuff is actually super important for war n stuff" and then they just get lawsuits thrown out... right?
Oh I fully agree, if it wasn't clear I am supporting the most radical conclusions you could possibly take from your original comment. I hope that wasn't you downvoting, and just the bots that activate whenever you mention a certain New York financier.
I didn't downvote your comment. I assume it's the same bots that flagged this post immediately. Call me a tinfoil hatter, but I've come to the belief that the data center lobbyists likely have bot armies to alert them there's negative discussions around data centers going on on HN
>> The populist uprising against them is happening because people have tried everything else first
From everything I've seen the populist uprising is happening because 99% of the people shouting don't know anything about data centers other than "bad".
When all they see is rising bills, louder environments, and less jobs: yes. all they know is "bad".
> unpermitted gas turbines they've been running at their Memphis Colossus data center
Just a reminder that when you're building a business, having land and a datacenter ready and cannot be switched on, with idle staff, costs the business money.
xAI could only draw 7-8MW from the grid and needed to run 10s of 1000s of H1000s. They shipped in 15 gas turbines as a more permanent onsite power plant while TVA/MLGW worked on expanding the grid supply to 150-300MW.
So you can get upset at musk all you want, but he has a business to run, and waiting for a full grid build out isn't practical.
I'm going to be blunt; this is a wildly bad-faith argument. You started the quote right after the important word: illegal.
> the illegal, unpermitted gas turbines they've been running at their Memphis Colossus data center
Illegal. These turbines are illegal. What xAI under Musk's direction is doing is illegal. A business that must break the law to be practical isn't a business, it's a criminal organization operating by hurting people (which is WHY it's illegal to run gas turbines like this), and both it and those running it must be held accountable.
You're arguing that it's fine to break the law if it would otherwise cost a business money. I don't accept that, and nobody else in this community should either.
> this is a wildly bad-faith argument
No. Calling it illegal is just something people do because they hate musk. They fell into a loop hole and had no permits as they were technically allowed if they stayed in 1 spot for less than 364 days. EPA later determined they did not qualify and required permits, permits were later granted.
Musk operated in a grey area to run his business to avoid having an idle data center while other people dragged their feet.
I purposely cut off `illegal` because calling it `illegal` was bad faith to begin with. But it's not unexpected that musk haters will come out raising banners in protest.
Are they actually missing required permits? what does the government say? Why haven't they gone in with the police?
I expect they have permission or dont need it.
At the very least, they have permission of the federal government which threw out all of the court cases against them.
So you can get upset at all you want, but I have a business to run, and waiting in traffic isn't practical - i just drove through all the people in the way.
Musk didn't break the law.
Your analogy is breaking the law.
If only there were more locations with better infrastructure for such data center...
Oh, right! This one was cheaper because it wasn't ready. Cheaper is gooder for business.
Of course the government has permission to punish crime. However government officials might find themselves in a courtroom having to demonstrate how they applied the law equally, and would be subject to discovery to see if they were being corruptly influenced (there is organization and international funding for the anti-data center movement in the US”; there is very little grassroots opposition other than typical NIMBYism you see in all development projects).
And the government would have to pay to fight and might be on the hook if they lost.
And “clearly breaking the law” isn’t always clear; I don’t k ow anything about this particular case but it sounds like zoning or applying utility laws to non-utility companies or environmental regulations being used to make construction financially untenable. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for opposition to off-grid natural gas turbines; you don’t get much cleaner off grid power that works 24x7.
> government officials might find themselves in a courtroom having to demonstrate how they applied the law equally
The government has no obligation to apply the law equally, although they are prohibited from applying the law unequally to achieve certain discriminatory aims.
> However government officials might find themselves in a courtroom having to demonstrate how they applied the law equally…
I wish I lived in your world.
I don’t have that kind of clout or money, but Elon does.
Back up a sec. Your definition of “equally” only applies to trillionaires?
“Applied the law equally” referred to politicians- did they allow something in some cases but not others, eg “selective enforcement”.
Your response was “I’d like to live in your world”, implying that you believe that it’s rarely the case that people can get government officials on the stand. That’s true for most people, but not true for people with deep pockets for lawyers.
I brought up Musk because Starlink was mentioned as the data center owner.
I do believe that you get more justice if you can afford to fight the government on its own terms in a courtroom. I don’t celebrate that.
> However government officials might find themselves in a courtroom having to demonstrate how they applied the law equally, and would be subject to discovery to see if they were being corruptly influenced (there is organization and international funding for the anti-data center movement in the US”
Bring it on. Data center developers are getting government officials to sign NDAs as an end-run around the democratic process (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...).
And that sounds like pro-datacenter corruption to me, and it's way better documented that the aspersions you're casting.
> there is very little grassroots opposition other than typical NIMBYism you see in all development projects
That's bullshit. About the only thing Americans agree on is that they hate datacenters: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/opinion/data-center-ai-de...:
> Americans hate data centers. They really, really hate them.
A Gallup poll from May found that 71 percent of Americans would oppose a data center being built in their area. In rural communities in Utah and North Carolina, regular people are organizing to stop data center construction, speaking out at public hearings and pressuring politicians for bans....
> According to polling by Heatmap News, more than half of all Americans support a national ban on data centers. The public seems to agree that data centers are giant, ugly, noisy, smelly altars to industrial-scale hostile architecture. In our virulently partisan country, this constitutes a rare show of consensus.
Hi all, pleasantly surprised to see my own article posted to HN before I did! I did space to push anything out about this for the most part, so thank you to speckx.
Anyway, happy to see the understanding reception here, I think it's worth continuing to drive home that these data centers have immediate impacts on the areas around them, which are disproportionately minorities and poor.
If you liked this article there's plenty more on my website, and feel free to ask any questions.
I hate to sounds like I'm defending them... but that's like every startup.
Taxi Pendants? Never heard of her
- Uber/Lyft
Gambling laws? Pssht
- Polymarkets
Oh - I was and still am absolutely against Uber's tactics in expanding to cities. I still do not use Uber unless I travel to countries where that's the only option.
Yes, a lot of startups are only successful because what they are doing suddenly isn't illegal anymore because it's being done with an app. Cory Doctorow has written about this in his book Enshittification
Aah yes that scrappy $1.7 trillion start-up.
I think we're far past calling the 7th largest stock on the S&P owned by the richest man in the world a "startup". Startups can't do something like this at scale.
It's been flagged now. Upset too many Elon bots and fanboys.
Intersting that the title was also changed from the current top level header:
>xAI Ignores Laws And Profits: Rules For Thee, Not For Me
To what it is now, as if this is just healthy competition.
I grow increasingly skeptical of HN's "moderation"
The moderation here typically leans to whatever generates the most curious discussion, rather than sticking with inflammatory titles, even if it's what the author intends. In some way, I trust HN to become the "editors" of the internet in a sense, as they have everyone's best interest in heart of course.
As the legendary PG once wrote: "What are you excessively curious about — curious to a degree that would bore most other people? That's what you're looking for"
> In some way, I trust HN to become the "editors" of the internet in a sense, as they have everyone's best interest in heart of course.
That's a dangerous mentality. Comments can be removed or lagged, but never edited. I feel the same about headlines. It's ultimate an artistic choice and I don't like the feeling of someone altering a headline to soften the blow. Especially to a trillion dollar company.
>What are you excessively curious about — curious to a degree that would bore most other people?
Certainly not this need to control the narrative.
Unaccountable flagging is a massive problem here and it's amazing the site doesn't have more protections for astroturfing
Comments that people don't like, which are clearly not just "spam" get flagged all the time. It's ridiculous
Many seem to consider it a feature. Including the mods. Certainly feels organized at times.
Who cares, Musk will soon solve also those pesky problems by putting data centers in space, it is easy. Also next year FSD but for real this time. /s
solely about the FSD part of your comment. I got a chance to ride in a 2024 edition of the system this year and I was shocked at how good it was. Was it level 5? of course not. But from my very lay understanding of level 3 it seemd to have achieved all that I would have assumed a computer could reasonably do.
None of that matters, unless you can buy a Tesla with FSD enabled. This has been promised so many times, for so many years, that it's become a bit of a joke.
You can, https://www.tesla.com/fsd
Are you trying to invent your own definition for self driving and quibble that supervision negates what the car is doing?
I'm not redefining self driving, tesla is: https://electrek.co/2025/09/05/tesla-changes-meaning-full-se...
When they first started talking about it in the mid-teens, it was pitched as "read a book or take a nap"
That is not what Tesla is selling in 2026.
>Are you trying to invent your own definition for self driving
Are you?
> Was it level 5? of course not.
You realize there are fully autonomous waymo cabs operating at "level 4" in several regions... today. Anybody can download the app and ride in them now.
Google didn't go around promising this "next year" every year for the last decade. They just went out and did the work to make the product work, and released it.
I do realize that. I'm not making a comparative judgement here. I'm mentioning that fsd as a feature is pretty amazing to me. Elon does over promise, but seems to at least partially deliver (as opposed to total vaporware).
You are behind, FSD is already here, my car drove me to work today (fully self driving)
Starlink v3 satelites launch next month, the first starmind sats based nvidia chips sometime next year, large new factories for the needed solar panels are already half built outside of bastrop texas
I don't like Elon Musk.
I don't like Grok or xAI. Or X. Or Twitter before.
I also don't like articles that try to bias readers with irrelevant details:
> This includes Grok, which has thus far been involved in controversies including but not limited to:
> Spreading antisemitic slurs and conspiracies while calling itself "Mecha-Hitler"
> Creating widespread non-consensual nude images of primarily women and children
> Acting as a mouthpiece for Elon's racist belief in South African white genocide
I stopped reading right there.
Hardly irrelevant. The purpose is establishing a pattern of abusive behavior so this can't be dismissed as a "misunderstanding".
Then show me a pattern of flouting regulations (which I can easily believe he has). His terrible views on unrelated issues are irrelevant.
This is being needlessly pedantic. Disdain for the rights of other people does not start and end at literal written regulations.
And yeah, on some level it's not strictly relevant to the exact legal question being discussed, but part of the purpose of an article is to give you reasons to give a shit about what's being reported.
> but part of the purpose of an article is to give you reasons to give a shit about what's being reported.
And this is where the article is trying to bias the readers.
As I said elsewhere: If this article was "Elon Musk is a shitty guy, and look at all the shitty stuff he does", I'd have no objection to any of this. Present all the examples, make the case, and let the reader decide.
But showing someone violating the law, and then pointing out possible other unrelated violations, you're trying to bias the reader.
If this were on trial and I were on the jury, and the prosecutor used such tactics, I'd be biased against the prosecution. There's a very good reason defense attorneys get judges to rule that such stuff can not be presented to the jurors.
So nobody can report facts if it makes the subject of an article look bad (or good)? This idea of unbiased reporting that you have is ridiculous. This isn't a court of law, and not everything needs to rise to that standard.
If you want something free of bias, go read an NTSB report. Even then, that's not a guarantee!!
Stories that involve peoples' motivations and politics are never free of bias. The fact that you think this is possible might betray some bias of your own.
> So nobody can report facts if it makes the subject of an article look bad (or good)?
If the specified goal of the article is to make the subject look bad, then of course it's fine. I've said that in many comments, and I say it again here.
Whatever, man. Enjoy whatever definition of bias you've constructed that always leaves you with a way to feel superior.
The issue is only one side of the bias makes the HN front page. Absolute foaming at the mouth nonsensical "articles" about Tesla with terrible predictions, sometimes just outright fake news that someone just made up which BlueSky, Reddit, BlueAnon and HN just lap up, which cheapens HN.
> The issue is only one side of the bias makes the HN front page.
lol.
What evidence is there of Musk's competency? Actual testimony that he has provided input that has led to revenue (or some more indirect form of success)? We can all hold and spend money; I'll admit his purchase of SpaceX was intelligent. But outside of that one decision, where is his supposed genius?
> What evidence is there of Musk's competency?
Why are you asking me? What makes you think I suggested he is competent? What does your question have to do with this whole conversation?
They actually think Musk bought SpaceX. If you try to correct such facts on Reddit, you get downvoted and/or permabanned by mods. Same on BlueSky. Sometimes even on here, it's a religion.
The things you're calling irrelevant actually flout a number of regulations in various jurisdictions, if your read news about xAI you should be familiar with the examples.
> The things you're calling irrelevant actually flout a number of regulations in various jurisdictions
Elon (or Grok) espousing racist views is not flouting data center related regulations. His business practices are.
you don’t think “Creating widespread non-consensual nude images of primarily women and children“ is illegal somewhere/anywhere?
> you don’t think “Creating widespread non-consensual nude images of primarily women and children“ is illegal somewhere/anywhere?
Are you reading any of my comments? I'm having trouble tying your question to anything I've said so far.
>flouting regulations.
That's the topic here. You don't think someone flouting regulations on distribution of internet content won't flout data center regulations?
> You don't think someone flouting regulations on distribution of internet content won't flout data center regulations?
You don't think someone flouting the speed limit laws won't flout online content regulations?
Yes, I in fact do. Same mentality. "It's only 5 above that's legal", "what use is 6 miles above".
It just creeps in and next thing you know you're complaining about a ticket despite going 15 above. "But everyone else is doing it". No self-reflection, only deflection.
We used to have a factor called "work ethic" to judge people on because once upon a time we recognized that such behavior is contagious. In both good and bad ways. A hard worker will probably pick up an adjacent job quickly. A slacker who otherwise gets stuff done is less likely to. This behavior is no different.
Why would these be irrelevant when they're examples of Musk biasing the LLM? Do you think these things came out of nowhere?
Correct me if I'm wrong: Is the article about a badly acting LLM?
Just because the machinery in the building grinds puppies into pulp doesn't mean the building itself is bad. I don't get what the big problem is!
Pretty bad analogy. The building is violating some laws. The laws being violated are unrelated to potential other laws being violated.
If I own a house and am not paying property taxes on it, the fact that I'm murdering people in that house is irrelevant.
Was part of this incorrect?
I never claimed it was. Are you willing to read pointless stuff just because it's accurate?
Interesting, you encounter a fact you don’t like and just quit reading all together. What a curious way to engage with the world.
I'll bite. The title is about ignoring regulations related to a data center. How is any of what I quoted relevant?
If the article were about Elon Musk's racist views, then by all means I'd be fine with it. But his (or Grok's) racism is irrelevant to the laws he is violating. Would it be OK if a well respected billionaire flouted those laws?
You don't think it's relevant to discuss what has been done with the resources from breaking these regulations? I think it's very relevant to the article. If this was about building illegal gas turbines to power cancer research, I think you would have a different perspective on the article.
I already addressed that here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49202037
And yes, I would be equally critical of any article that talks about someone violating laws with their data center, and that tries to list the positives coming out of the data center as a mitigating factor. It isn't one.
Not really, its a valid way to manage ones time, because if you deem the message to not be I the quality you expect, you can just find a better article.
Sure, but you can hardly expect to interact with the world in a rational way if you explicitly decide to ignore it
There is plenty of the world that doesn't behave this way.
Flipping it around: Can you tell me why I need to interact with such articles? What did I lose by not reading it? I can certainly tell you what I gained.
Look at this statement from the article:
>These racks are needed to keep up with the ballooning requirements of each new "frontier" (a buzzword label with no actual inclination of performance of improvement) model developed, which everyone bought into the AI hype will immediately hop to because it's all novelty over utility.
This is a mind-blowingly clueless assertion. This is not a person capable of rationally assessing facts. At best this kind of writing is interesting as an artifict of human delusion and cognitive bias.
> This is a mind-blowingly clueless assertion. This is not a person capable of rationally assessing facts. At best this kind of writing is interesting as an artifict of human delusion and cognitive bias.
How do you figure? This description would be best applied to you:
* Musk both wildly wealthy because of his popularity and simultaneously incompetent
* Musk and other investors have made boatloads of money off the promise that specifically american, boutique LLMs will deliver labor savings. in his case spaces, but it's indistinguishable from similar frauds such as eg openai, anthropic, etc
* Musk's properties will likely collapse unless they can find new revenue or investors.
Musk can only grift so many people before his bottom falls out
Should people disengage with Hn because they don't like your opinion?
> Should people disengage with Hn because they don't like your opinion?
Neither I, nor the person you're responding to (tommica) suggested anything of the sort.
I stopped at "f*ck*ss". Irreverent drivel is unserious and a waste of time.
This isn't a formal publication. This is the type of post that used to be celebrated in hacker culture. The type of post that purposefully flounders respectability politics even if it's just for aesthetic forms of rebellion. Clearly it's offending the type of people it meant to :)
That's some form of success.
The applications are not tangential, they're an irreplaceable tool the hyperscalers relied on to get us where we are now. Pollution is bad but it's a different story if it's curing cancer vs making nudes of female politicians. This is like the fundamental principle of effective altruism, which everyone in tech industry leadership used to justify their negative externalities on the way up. Now that they're being asked to show results it's out the window.
I mean, that's the good faith argument anyways. I suspect you don't actually care, and just also believe in South African white genocide etc.
> Pollution is bad but it's a different story if it's curing cancer vs making nudes of female politicians.
Completely disagree. That sort of reasoning is why plenty of African Americans were forcibly moved from their own properties in the 20th century. "The land will be put to great use!" (And in a lot of cases, it was - still wrong).
(I also disagree, I'm just using it to argue with the guy above claiming it's irrelevant)
Within your metaphor, the person I'm replying to would say "I did nothing to stop the land theft because I found it annoying how people made irrelevant arguments about what the land would be used for". Really calls into question if their real position is what they say it is.
> Within your metaphor, the person I'm replying to would say "I did nothing to stop the land theft because I found it annoying how people made irrelevant arguments about what the land would be used for". Really calls into question if their real position is what they say it is.
You can introduce that person to the concept of "strawman".
Not reading an article does not equate to any of the following: Support, Opposition, Neutrality, Apathy, Indifference.
Hard to call them "irrelevant details" when they are facts, and that this data center is specifically used to run this AI for anti-semitic, pro-Hitler, and CSAM content. It would be bad enough if the data center was used to research cures to cancer, but instead it is creating nudes of children.
Facts and "irrelevant details" are not mutually exclusive.
> It would be bad enough if the data center was used to research cures to cancer, but instead it is creating nudes of children.
Sorry, but what it is being used for is irrelevant to whether it is flouting the laws.
As I said in my original comment, the reason I stopped reading was because the language was trying to bias readers. And as the responses show, they sure as Hell did.
It seems critical reading is becoming a lost skill.
What part offended you? The statement of fact?
The statement of irrelevant facts.
It's like criticizing Stallman's hygiene. Who cares?
> Creating widespread non-consensual nude images of primarily women and children
That is an example of ignoring laws and regulations. So that is certainly relevant as context to the current case where the company is ignoring laws and regulations.
> That is an example of ignoring laws and regulations.
OK. Let me ask you: Is the article about those laws and regulations?
I'm well aware of all these problems. They are simply not relevant to data center violations.
Again: Stallman having bad hygiene is irrelevant to whether his opinions on various matters is problematic.
Many such cases