Technology@lemmy.worldbySome_Emo_Chick@lemmy.world
10 hours

Michigan residents sue AI data center emitting noise 24/7 — company fined for industrial noise ordinance violations, offers to buy homes from residents

www.tomshardware.com English

Residents of Dowagiac, Michigan, just filed a lawsuit against a data center that allegedly generates a high-pitched whining sound — and has done so 24/7 for the past two years.

The data center, which is owned by Alliance Cloud Services LLC, a subsidiary of Hyperscale Data, used to be an industrial building that sat behind a row of pine trees across the street from the most affected residents, according to ABC-affiliateWXYZ. The site started development in 2018 and was eventually turned into a cryptocurrency mining center in 2021. But in 2024, something changed drastically when the building started emitting noise pollution around the clock. Residents say it sounds like a vacuum cleaner in their living room, and the company has offered to buy up homes from unhappy residents.

42
    'It sounds like someone set up a vacuum, like in your living room': Michigan residents sue AI data center emitting noise 24/7 — company fined for industrial noise ordinance violations, offers to buy homes from residents
    www.tomshardware.com
    Some residents have been there for almost 100 years
      • Zarobi@aussie.zoneEnglish
        6 hours

        Good thing wildlife are known for their terrible hearing

        • MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish
          5 hours

          There’s the thing: what’s a woodpecker’s property rights on his dead tree? I mean, you can offer him any amount of money and he isn’t likely to just give up the nest he carved in it and move on to try to find another. Ask a colony of bats what they want to move to a new roost?

          Same for people’s homes, there’s a price they could get for them if they tried to sell on the open market because they want to leave, but there’s a very different and often much higher price that would be required to compensate them for the downsides of moving.

          When a corporation wants to entice a new hire to move to a new city, they will buy the home at high-end market value, pay the real-estate commissions on both sale of the old home and purchase of the new home, pay for professional movers, and bulk up all of these benefits to cover increased income taxes where applicable. And that’s for a new hire who wants to move.

    • grte@lemmy.caEnglish
      9 hours

      The company said that it’s planning to expand its operations in the footprint in the area

      Residents say it sounds like a vacuum cleaner in their living room, and the company has offered to buy up homes from unhappy residents.

      Very convenient for them that they converted their data centre into a property value destroyer before making this offer. I’m sure that’s coincidental.

      • Courtney (she/her/they) @lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        8 hours

        Offer to buy at 500x the highest value it ever had, when adjusted for inflation, plus 10% of the company’s revenue going forward, and maybe I’d consider it.

        • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          1 hour

          Yeah an outrageous amount, plus ethical costs to undo all the fuckery, the lost peace, the labor and lost investments, and all of that doubled, is the correct fee.

          If the house would have sold for 1m, ask for 50m, then the environmental damage costs in equipment and labor and plants and animals, so now we’re up to 1b, doubled to 2b, and a fat 50% fuckyou fee on top and round up to 3b usd.

          People need to aim higher. If the company won’t pay and will ruin your life instead, then guess their intent is actual war, and they shall have it.

          Don’t let the bullies win. Fight back.

        • MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish
          4 hours

          More reasonable: roll back to before the datacenter was permitted for construction, find substantially equivalent houses in the general area - 20% more square footage, 20% higher value per square foot, and track their values over time until the present, and whatever the peak was, offer 20% more than that plus moving expenses… effectively 175% of “fair” value + maybe $20K.

          • athatet@lemmy.zipEnglish
            2 hours

            Most reasonable: burn down the data center and build low cost housing on the ashes.

            • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
              18 minutes

              So far what they’ve done sounds like they’re trying to be somewhat reasonable. They bought a bunch of acreage as a sound buffer zone and they offered to buy people’s houses at a price we don’t have information on. We don’t really know how unreasonable they’re going to be.

            • MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish
              4 hours

              Yeah, 0.5% was what I was offered as Director of 50% of new startups… 0.005% is more realistic - and could range from 0 to outrageous.

    • WesternInfidels@feddit.onlineEnglish
      9 hours

      Hyperscale Data CEO William Horne told the residents directly in a special council meeting that the site is pivoting away from cryptocurrency operations towards AI computing and advanced robotics, and that it’s spending $100 million to achieve this.

      Why would anyone outside the business give a shit about this? Why would the CEO think anyone outside the business gave a shit about this?

      Why aren’t the datacenter owners ever willing to spend, say, $10 million on making the data center actually quiet instead?

      • EliteCloneMike@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1 hour

        His real audience are the investors and people who stand to make a profit off of this data center. CEOs rarely if ever addressing anybody but the shareholders. It sounds dumb in that context, because it is, but when you realize who the real audience is, it makes sense. It’s shitty.

      • HeartyOfGlass@piefed.socialEnglish
        4 hours

        Why aren’t the datacenter owners ever willing to spend, say, $10 million on making the data center actually quiet instead?

        I think you know the answer to this - $10 mil on soundproofing doesn’t make the Bottom Line go up. The only people they’re trying to please are the folks that profit off the company.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
          4 hours

          I think you know the answer to this - $10 mil on soundproofing doesn’t make the Bottom Line go up

          Neither does buying out 10 million worth of houses.

          • HeartyOfGlass@piefed.socialEnglish
            4 hours

            I didn’t see anywhere in the article where they say they were going to buy the houses for that amount. Do you have other information?

            'Cause otherwise - those homes have been severely devalued because of that data center. Unless the CEO was feeling generous (ha), those homeowners would be forced to sell for a bottom-of-the-barrel price. And that is much cheaper than litigation.

    • notabot@piefed.socialEnglish
      9 hours

      That’s very decent if them, but the thing is, there’s now strong demand for those houses, as there’s a corporate buyer looking to purchase them, so the price has gone up a bit. Say by an extra digit or so added to the value.

      • T00l_shed@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9 hours

        Yup, if say, the going rate for the houses were 400k, we’ll they should now be 4 mil each

              • Aqivex@fedinsfw.appEnglish
                8 hours

                Other poster isn’t being difficult, facetious, or provocative, btw. The scumbags have already done exactly that, in other US states, already. Often. The articles are all over Lemmy.

                • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                  8 hours

                  Thanks, I missed that as I was skimming. Jeeze, really burying the lede there that a company already fucking up the neighborhood wants to get bigger.

              • Brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                8 hours

                It’s mainly about the noise but the article does mention

                The company said that it’s planning to expand its operations in the footprint in the area, but the city said that it hasn’t received any permit applications.

                • anomnom@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  8 hours

                  Expanding “in the footprint” would mean adding more operations to the existing property, not taking more property. Unless that’s a typo

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9 hours

        also if you have a lower interest rate than is available today (likely) then your payments are going to go up even if you buy a house at the exact same price. not to mention the cost and hassle of moving.

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      8 hours

      and the company has offered to buy up homes from unhappy residents

      “I’m gonna pay you $20 to fuck off.”

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8 hours

      What are they offering to buy the homes with, highly volatile shares of the AI companies stock, or millions of tokens they can use the AI with?

      • bad1080@piefed.socialEnglish
        8 hours

        “we’ll buy the homes with tokens” is the most asinine shit but it probably has come up in a board meeting…