How NDAs keep AI data center details hidden from Americans

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https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/data-center-ai-google-amazon-nda-non-disclosure-agreement-colossus-rcna236423

On a March afternoon in Mason County, Kentucky, Dr. Timothy Grosser and his son Andy sat across the table from three men who came with an offer: $10 million for the 250-acre farm where they’d lived and worked for nearly four decades.

That’s 35 times what Grosser bought his land for in 1988 and significantly more than what others in the area had sold their land for recently. But there was a catch — it wasn’t clear who was funding the offer. One of the men said he represented a “Fortune 100 company” that wanted the property for an industrial development, but he refused to say what kind, which company or even his own name.

Instead, he pulled out a non-disclosure agreement.

Grosser said the contract would prevent him from discussing the project’s details with any third parties in exchange for limited information about its purpose, timeline and size. It didn’t disclose the company’s name, which could be discussed only after the company publicly announced its participation in the project.

“We refused to sign it,” Grosser said. “I’m not selling my farm for any amount of money.”

In Virginia’s Loudoun County, the world’s densest hub of data centers, locals have complained of a “constant whir” from cooling fans and backup generators. And in Tennessee’s South Memphis, the methane gas turbines that power an xAI data center give off air pollutants contributing to smog and formaldehyde. xAI has vowed to stay below pollutant limits in the area.

The confidentiality behind some of the projects has only added to the level of concern from some residents.

Secrecy can backfire

Local battles over data center development are playing out across the United States.

In Saint Charles, Missouri, secrecy fueled a grassroots revolt. Thousands of residents led a movement to strike down “Project Cumulus,” a 440-acre data center proposal.


In Arizona, the secrecy of data center developers backfired.

Pima County officials were bound by an NDA over “Project Blue,” a $3.6 billion proposal put forth by Amazon Web Services, according to a one-page county memo NBC News obtained through a public records request. The project, which would have been built just outside Tucson, was revealed through a leak to the local outlet Arizona Luminaria.

Dr. Matt Heinz, a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, said he didn’t even realize he was covered by the agreement until, he said, a developer’s spokesperson called to accuse him of violating it by having spoken to a local newspaper.

Another thing about sleazy “data as oil” drivel and the theft fueling a lot of pointless non-industry is that it should be recognized that it is hitting its limits as society gets increasingly unequal and kleptocratic. Genuinely respectable fields like medicine or publicly funded science should never borrow methods from those greasy tech giants or PRC. My impression of eyebrow raising stuff I have seen is that, an argument that was used to justify stem cell research to the Bushies has been perverted to claim that to outdo PRC, America and probably other democracies should now double down on surveillance, manipulation etc. That’s stupid. It’s thankfully too late to force methods out of PRC, Russia etc. on most democracies-whether it is the north or the south.

And showbiz, gaming etc are not appropriate in hospitals, schools, residential areas etc
(Just to cover all the lousy ideas these types of people think could fly).

Eventually stricter data regulation laws will emerge and this is the type of scandal to avoid when assuming that data, cadavers etc are just there to be exploited.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/university-north-texas-corpses-dissected-unclaimed-bodies-rcna170478

Cut up and leased out, the bodies of the poor suffer a final indignity in Texas
The University of North Texas Health Science Center built a flourishing business using hundreds of unclaimed corpses. It suspended the program after NBC News exposed failures to treat the dead and their families with respect.

I have always respected doctors and scientists. But admins of hospitals, universities etc -that’s a totally different type of individual. This is not one of the most historically disliked managerial class at this point for no reason.
This totally shady data mining and exploitation environment, this rold gold AI rush cannot last. Those lousy AI things supplanting all worthwhile research is awful. If it’s good work I doubt it’s conducted like this. It may be embattled in this environment where only rubbish flourishes. But it will still not be anything like this-sloppy, fake serious, theatrical, superficial etc. This really the Idiocracy.
I am not entirely close minded to any science. But this rubbish doesn’t look anything like good science.

And I generally like doctors and wish students well and think they should recognize that mostly those people don’t serve anyone’s interests. A lot of overworked professionals don’t notice this rot till it’s trying to take over everything stealthily.

I follow this doctor Clayton Dalton and he writes about stuff like that:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/25/us-health-care-for-profit-emergency-rooms-physician-turnover

Earlier this year, I stood outside the hospital in New Mexico where I worked as an emergency physician. I was, for the first time, picketing. The next day I would be fired, another first. At least I wasn’t the only one – all of my colleagues would also be terminated.

Why would a hospital fire an entire department of doctors?

The hospital, it turns out, had decided to outsource us.

The emergency room at the hospital, Presbyterian Santa Fe medical center, would be taken over by a company called Sound Physicians. Sound is a contract management group, or CMG. It’s a for-profit corporation, owned in part by a private equity firm.

Private equity-backed CMGs now operate a quarter of all ERs in the US. The rise of the CMG reflects growing private equity investment in healthcare generally, up more than 20-fold since 2000.

The pitch is that CMGs can bring business savvy and financial resources to a struggling clinic or department. They argue that this is exactly what American healthcare needs: seasoned investors bringing an infusion of capital and business acumen.

I am not in the US and I would really like it if my country would not copy these terrible ideas (which they totally would from what passes for the left here and the right. Most leaders an d their sycophants in the media everywhere are united in screwing over most people and destroying the planet while engaged in meaningless kayfabe). All that Yimby stuff is a metaphoric cancer. This writer I like Christopher Ketcham gets it. Using NIMBY as a way to attack people who object to basically heists in broad daylight is appalling.

People can learn from past errors and stop these interests before they get entrenched and demand explanations and verification before permitting unsourced rubbish on our streets or in our homes.
I have personally been ripped off too many times by now and I am bloody well fed-up.

I am cautious about not fear-mongering like a crazy person but I have felt like a canary in a rubbish mine for some 15 years and it gets old.

I have to go offline as I have a lot of work to catch up on but I sound the alarm/warnings about the growth of junk industry to make it clear that you have hit the limits of growth in my case and should stop.