This flier arrived in my mailbox last week. I have opinions.

First, I’ll note that nowhere in this flier does it say who would own the proposed data center, but I have to assume that it would be corporate owned. There is an attribution for “Michigan Deserves Better” which is a “527” – basically a non-profit political action committee. Why is a non-profit PAC pushing for a corporate-owned for-profit data center?

Second, the positive: at least someone in this PAC recognizes the basic controversial stuff involving public pushback against data centers: tax avoidance, increased water use, increased electric rates.

Third, the negative, point by point.

– Nothing in that “$240M per year in property taxes (estimated)” promises that they would not seek tax breaks. These corporations can afford to pay all of their taxes; the only reason not to is greed. I want businesses in my township to be positively contributing to my township and pushing for tax breaks stinks of the opposite.
– Less water use than even worse data centers is a good start. But are they seeking exemptions for paying for water use? There is nothing about whether my water/sewer utility bill would increase anyway.
– If large industrial users have to pay for the grid capacity they need, why are electric rates going up in other data centers anyway? – It’s not just the grid capacity, it’s the actual usage. Data centers should actually pay in full for their electrical useage, in addition to paying for adding grid capacity.
– “Community investment supported” – if they would actually pay their fair share of taxes and utilities, none of this bullshit is needed.
– “Thousands of jobs created” – but not generally jobs for residents of Lenox Township. Whatever jobs this is talking about will not translate into significantly increased revenue for the township. And many of these jobs will be temporary, only for the construction, not the long-term management. This is a lie of multiple omissions. Note that as a controls engineer, I would be one of the very few people living in Lenox Township who might actually be hired at this proposed data center.

Fourth, what happens when the data center gets shut down? Do we just get a whole bunch of derelict industrial buildings where the government has to step in and clean it up?

Fifth, there is nothing about preventing noise and other types of pollution. This is pretty important, particularly with industrial parks.

Sixth, data centers means AI processing. Right now, this is probably the biggest concern across the country. I have a different focus on the problem than most people. Typically, people decry the unreliability of the AI slop or how it causes “brain rot”. I believe that AI has caused a serious copyright problem. If a corporation with a large AI platform (think Google Gemini, Microsoft CoPilot, Suno, etc.) is able to redirect revenue away from copyright holders without permission or punishment, this effectively destroys the function of copyright law. I do not mean just that these companies violated copyright laws; I mean that the function of copyright law to protect copyrights from abuse is broken. Entire countries’ economies around the world rely on agreement among these laws. This copyright threat happens every time a disrupting technology comes along, and every time there has to be a shakeout to figure out how copyright holders are reimbursed. Historically this happened with the inventions of printed music, recorded music, radio, television, streaming, and now generative AI. I think it would be a good idea to hold off on trusting these corporations, even in the sense of whether or not a data center is still functional in 5 years, until this copyright problem is sorted out.