Amazon tries to placate data center protesters

Link: Amazon pledges $1B to data center communities, warns that local opposition threatens U.S. AI lead, by Todd Bishop in GeekWireThis is a sign that protests are working:“Amazon says it will spend more than $1 billion over five years in the U.S. communities where it builds and operates data centers, responding to a growing backlash across the country against the tech industry’s massive AI infrastructure buildout.”But I’d consider this a settlement rather than a win: companies like Amazon need the data centers to be built in order to continue their growth. Communities opposing them should be able to keep pressing and get bigger, ongoing concessions at the very least.The objections here follow a predictable playbook: claims about widespread foreign interference (because surely no real American could oppose data centers in their communities) and a warning that America will lose to China if it doesn’t keep building. It’s a scaremongering technique designed to keep people in line without…