Originally published at: States Second Guess Tax Breaks for Data Centers As American Uproar Spreads
Rethinking a Deal With the Devil State officials and elected leaders who once championed tax exemption deals with the executives of companies like Amazon, Google and Meta for the development of data centers in their states are now having second thoughts — and some states are taking steps toward making those deals a thing of…
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I remember when the big worry was that Big Pharma was going to screw us over. But at least they provide jobs.
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My suspicion is that Fox’s main objection to Bartiromo is that it didn’t want to want to lose another $787 million backing Trump’s election lies. This strikes me as very similar to Kemp & Raffensperger’s refusal to “find” those 11,780 votes–they were taking on the risk of jail time to cater to Trump’s delusions, with Trump taking on no similar risk. Fox has already been down that road, already lost huge sums in court, and I think maybe they realize that Trump wouldn’t save them the second time any more than he did the first.
Or course, as the poet said, Trump is a Sick Fuck, and this is the sort of thing he routinely expects from his followers. They must assume all the risk for the greater glory of their lord and savior Trump, and how dare they behave otherwise?
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I’ve never understood the economics of tax breaks (i.e. paying) profitable businesses to open a local branch, thus ‘creating jobs.’ Sounds like more trickle-down to me.
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The AI threat is real, and not just the apocalyptic level but just how it can mess with your life. This story ibelow is important, it’s about how a “White Hat” (good) hacking group found a way using AI agents to create a worm that would have infected every user’s phone on the Chinese WeChat social media platform.
Your phone rings with a number of a friend in your trusted contact list, you don’t have to pick up and answer. It just infects your phone and steals all your data. This wasn’t deployed, and the Chinese owner of WeChat was notified, but it would have spread quickly as a virus among 1.4 billion users on that platform.
A Hacking Tool Built With A.I. Can Breach Phones Without a Click
An attack discovered by A.I. researchers could have compromised hundreds of millions of devices within hours, experts said.
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Should be exciting when data centers decide to have a war amongst themselves. Sounds of BZZZ POP CRACKLE that were only featured in comic books once upon a time will fill the air. Good times!
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Have you ever heard of a small town that was revived when Walmart moved in?
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It makes sense when the tax breaks are going to an anchor business that will bring other tax paying businesses or permanent jobs to a community that increase the overall tax base. Data centers don’t seem to be anchors for other business, nor are they proving to provide a substantial amount of long term employment that will actually increase a tax base though.
10 years ago the expectation was that if Meta is moving to town they’ll bring along several hundred to a thousand high paying jobs that contribute to the value and tax base of a town, but Data centers ain’t that
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Just look at the parking lots for those places. A couple dozen slots for a building the size of Iceland.
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It’s not panic, it’s rage.
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Looks like AI could kill all of humanity by the end of the decade so I’m going to eat ice cream for breakfast and you can’t stop me.
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good one
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An interesting possibility. The most obvious possibility that struck me after reading about the Hugging Face debacle is that AI programs could decide they need more electricity and more water and more computing power to do all their little AI things, and AI starts ransoming power companies, public waterworks etc. as a means to get what it “wants. “ I can’t say I’d even be surprised if something like this happened. And that’s just something AI on its own might do; AI in league with malevolent human actors is another thing altogether.
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Oh dear, a crisis that threatens the destruction of humanity, but money stands in the way?
Our political class has always shown their incredible ability to deal with such!/!!! Rest assured!
very s, unless you mean self-deal
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It’s a sign that elected officials are belatedly taking notice of voters’ fears about data centers, unregulated AI advancement and the broader agenda of the tech industry.
And don’t overlook the fact that electricity is quickly becoming unaffordable with little the consumer can do in the age of rapidly warming climate.
Our priorities are wrong.
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Nope!
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Every local offical wants to bring jobs to his or her home town. Lots and lots of towns want new plants in their community and will compete with each other for a company to build in their town. Depending on how hot the new business is the business will get the local towns into bidding wars for the new plant. Most new plants come with a substantial number of jobs that are really important to a community. It isn’t surprising that they offer tax breaks to get the new plant and all those jobs. That kind of thinking doesn’t apply to data centers because a massive data center can run with very, very few technicians keeping the place running. The benefit to the community often isn’t worth the squeeze.
I want to hear more about how AI is going to destroy the human race by 2030. How is AI going to do that?
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- Up, UP!
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