[defrost]

The article covers various opinions expressed by various people, one person

  Moya Bailey, a professor at Northwestern University who specializes in the representation of race and gender in the media,

expressed several opinions at various strengths. including:

  Bailey also points out that racism within the AI industry goes as far as the actual methods used to power it. She references the negative health impact of xAI data centers in a Memphis neighborhood called Boxtown, which is 90 percent Black, as an example of environmental racism inflicted by the AI industry.

If you disagree with Bailey you should say why.

It's worth noting that her objections stem from clean air violations outlined here:

  Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company is belching smog-forming pollution into an area of South Memphis that already leads the state in emergency department visits for asthma.

  None of the 35 methane gas turbines that help power xAI’s massive supercomputer is equipped with pollution controls typically required by federal rules.

~ https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memph...

[dminik]

Amazing. People here would rather be mad at fake racism than at real racism. I wonder if that correlates with how much they're invested in LLMs.

[defrost]

I'd personally describe the seemingly inevitable placement of toxic byproduct industries in poor minority areas as economic bigotry, I'll concede that in the USofA that veers more toward black neighbourhoods in some states and accept that it also includes a lot of poor white areas also.

[mplanchard]

Presumably no one said “let’s build the data center where the black people live, mwahahah.” Instead, they said, “let’s build the data center where it’s cheap.” Where it’s cheap also happens to be where the black people live, and that’s a pattern. The pattern has historical roots, but it also affects modern communities. The academic quoted in the article is likely highlighting this point, which probably to them seems obvious, given they are steeped in the field.