xAI Ignores Laws and Profits: Rules for Thee, Not for Me

> 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

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.

[flagged]

I got the feeling that if there is an uprising against AI overlords, the rationale would be that it was illegally built, be it physically or intellectually.

The permanent underclass may decide that the deal which led to their situation wasn't right as not only their intellectual output but also their physical resources were illegally used.

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

[flagged]

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.

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

[flagged]