So what exactly did Ghori reveal on Relentless? Well, he seemed to tip off the possibility that xAI has been skirting regulations and getting dubious permits when building data centers—specifically, its prized Colossus supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee. “The lease for the land itself was actually technically temporary. It was the fastest way to get the permitting through and actually start building things,” he said. “I assume that it’ll be permanent at some point, but it’s a very short-term lease at the moment, technically, for all the data centers. It’s the fastest way to get things done.”
When asked how xAI has gone about getting those temporary leases, Ghori explained that they worked with local and state governments to get permits that allow companies to “modify this ground temporarily,” and said they are typically for things like carnivals.
Colossus was not without controversy already. The data center, which xAI brags only took 122 days to build, was powered by at least 35 methane gas turbines that the company reportedly didn’t have the permits to operate. Even the Donald Trump-staffed Environmental Protection Agency declared the turbines to be illegal. Those turbines, which were operating without permission, contributed to the significant amount of air pollution experienced by surrounding communities.
In addition to the indication of other potential legal end-arounds committed by xAI, Ghori also revealed some of the company’s internal operations, including relying significantly on AI agents to complete work. “Right now, we’re doing a big rebuild of our core production APIs. It’s being done by one person with like 20 agents,” he said. “And they’re very good, and they’re capable of doing it, and it’s working well,” though he later stated that the reliance on agents can lead to confusion. “Multiple times I’ve gotten a ping saying, ‘Hey, this guy on the org chart reports to you. Is he not in today or something?’ And it’s an AI. It’s a virtual employee.”
Ghori explained that they worked with local and state governments to get permits that allow companies to “modify this ground temporarily,” and said they are typically for things like carnivals.
X being run as a carival makes a lot of sense. Managed by clowns and all
Yeah, but these are sewer clowns.
Cheaper to ask forgiveness later than permission up front.
Damn, nothing stands in the way of these companies anymore.
And they will not ask for forgiveness. They will tell you that you should apologize for trying to stand in the way of their progress, while they send society back to the stone age.
“Right now, we’re doing a big rebuild of our core production APIs. It’s being done by one person with like 20 agents,”
Lmao that’s totally not gonna be a train wreck at all
No see, that one guy totally knows what going on and is immortal so will always be there to answer questions on how the code was written and where it might have gone wrong.
And the agents will totally remember anything and don’t have limited context windows that vanish after every command.
Why does an AI agent need to be a virtual employee on the org chart? Are they doing something “creative” with their accounting?
My guess is that they have email hooks into LLM and call each entry point into LLM invocation an ‘agent’ and I have seen in a lot of companies the easiest way for them to have an email is to just add them to the directory.
It’s still dumb as hell, but I am no stranger to non-human’s in an ‘employee directory’, though usually it is supremely obvious that it is a non-person so if it’s at all confusing it means they are being ‘cute’ about their accounts.
I mean service accounts and email groups are a thing.
This sounds like someone asked an LLM how to give them an email account and it parroted the instructions for a regular user because no one involved new any better.
Wait. Tempory lease ends -> kick them out -> free data center -> profit???
Coupe of things here:. The main meat here we pretty much already knew like a year ago, about the generators being not properly permitted, causing polution.
But I hope this guy doesn’t get harassed by Musk, with a bunch of lawyers, though I’m pretty confident he will.
But it’s odd, at first I thought this engineer would be a software engineer, but he goes into much detail about construction and permitting, so I thought he must instead be a construction engineer.
But then he goes back to talking about API development. Not saying he’s wrong, but that seems like an odd role. Or the term “engineer” is not really the best description of his role.I don’t think the permitting is the problem. The problem is Not that they didn’t pay to get the permits and wait for the bureaucracy to approve them.
The problem is they shouldn’t have been doing any of this in the first place there isn’t the power generation locally to power these data centers and even when there is the prices for everyone who lives there will skyrocket.
The whole point of having regulatory oversight so that rich people can’t just build whatever the fuck they want where they want it quickly before anyone can do anything about it. Permit is just legalized bribery. If you don’t go through the steps and pay the local municipality they don’t give you the permit.
Elon Musk responds.
Don’t care. US tax payers are still paying me . LOL get fucked poor people.
Oh wow, so the infrastructure for the CSAM generator is also skirting the law? I am shocked, shocked! Well, not that shocked.
They’re probably not even building to industry standards and not properly grounding their equipment, so if you were to visit the “datacenter” you’d be literally shocked.
Why are AI agents on the org chart? That’s odd and sketchy. Seems like it could be some sort of fraud to pad numbers.
So interestingly enough, this isn’t super uncommon.
The RPA industry has dealt with something similar previously.
Some companies limit certain systems to only allow human to log into them, RPA tools would impersonate humans so they would encounter this.
A few places I have worked had ad accounts almost indistinguishable from human accounts other than a flag. This required adjustments of org charts, hr systems, etc to ensure that they were treated as th service accounts they actually are.
The leader of th RPA org at one place I worked got hauled in front of the head of HR to explain why his 200 RPA accounts haven’t completed their trainings.
It’s not good practice, but it’s not unique to X.
It’s twitter. It’s based on fraud these days.
If it’s technically illegal, but nobody ever gets a sentence for it, it’s actually completely legal.
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They probably replaced HR with AI too, and it messed up the org chart.
They also seem to have replaced their PR team with AI, given all the stuff he probably should have been coached not to say in this interview.
They’re not the only company doing it. Whole thing is dodgy AF.
Depends on how their org chart is referenced. It might be a service account for the AI agent.
they are typically for things like carnivals.
Well xAI is a circus, so it’s fairly accurate.
Oh to live in the parallel universe where those local and state governments tell them to pack up their data centre and shove off once their carnival leases expire. The sonic schadenfreude would be felt around the globe.
Or they jack up the rent to really fleece musk and the other datacenter owners. Would be nice to stick it to them. But they would just throw in more money and add it to the bubble that keeps growing. Then you’ve got a few local politicians and local landlords getting in on the grift until the bubble pops and they walk away ahead.
I’m starting to wonder if a significant amount of people do not understand what thought is.
I hope that the people of Memphis can force the city council to refuse any extensions to the permit. We need to make sure that their actions are made public, and hopefully, people can break the companies.
Have you been to Memphis? Place looks like a war zone. Burned down building, roads with pot holes the size of moon craters. The place is worth driving around. I guarantee there is no will on the city council to revoke the xAI contract.
That’s why city voters, especially homeowners, have to go to council meetings and speak up. Call for a public vote on it.
I like your enthusiasm, but you’re going about this all wrong.
City council refuses the permits.
Musk does it anyways.
Nothing happens.
But hey, we blocked those permits, right?
Well, it should be that the City Council refuses the permits, and if Musk does it anyway, the City either bulldozes the building, or sues him until the building is removed. So either the building comes down or the municipality makes a pile of cash off the bastard.
He bought twitter for 43 billion dollars on a goof. To him a “pile of cash” is like 3 pennies to you.
And I’m not saying this to defend him. I’m just saying that charging him money isn’t the “gotcha!” that you think it is.
It’s not a gotcha. It’s a decent cash flow to the city if he wants to se the real estate - and that’s before they tax him, and sue him again if he evades,
I hear you, but I would imagine that Musk would retaliate by counter-suing the city and/or state, if for no other reason than spite. And would drag the whole thing out for at least as long as the AI infatuation lasts before abandoning the building for officials to deal with.
A single citizen with a drone and a bunch of glass bottles full of petrol dropped onto the generators, however, would shut down operations immediately.
Just remember your opsec. If/when (assume when) someone shoots the molotov bot down, make sure it doesn’t have a serial number that can be tied to you, or any data connection in its logs that connects to you. Don’t use your phone or any device you can’t immediately destroy (i.e. do not be tracked by the MAC either) to connect to it.
My suggestion, buy a cheap laptop from a pawnshop/cash converters type place, connect to the drone only from a Starbucks or McD’s. When you make the drop, either plunge the drone down into the fire, or get it to a safe location away from you that you’ll be able to get to without being tracked. Dismantle the laptop as much as possible, ditch all radios into public trash cans (preferably within an hour of normal pickup).
Wasting resources on data centers is egregious enough, but an xAI one just adds insult to injury.
“Wake up, Samurai…”
