Amazon Employees Show Up to City Council Meeting to Demand Limits on Data Centers
Key takeaways
- “Local governments, in collaboration with community stakeholders, should be setting the terms for data center buildout,” Amazon senior software engineer Liesl Wigand said at a city hearing.
- Schloesser, who has been at Amazon for nearly six years, said that data centers should have to supply more renewable energy than they consume and provide power storage to support the broader electricity grid.
- Additional members of the group may speak at other city hearings where a one-year pause ordinance on data centers is expected to come up for debate, including later on Wednesday.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photograph: Jason Redmond/Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Two Amazon employees on Wednesday publicly called for regulations on new data centers, telling elected officials in Seattle that unchecked development of the sharply disputed nerve centers of AI threatens the region’s environment, economy, and safety.
“Local governments, in collaboration with community stakeholders, should be setting the terms for data center buildout,” Amazon senior software engineer Liesl Wigand said at a city hearing. “Let’s not let big tech burn Seattle to win the AI race.”
The comments by Wigand and another Amazon software engineer, Patrick Schloesser, mark a significant escalation in the protest movement across the US against the rapid construction of data centers over the past couple of years. While workers at several big tech companies, including Amazon, have complained about the negative effects of data centers and the need for greater oversight, none are believed to have done so as publicly and explicitly before, according to labor organizers supporting the effort in Seattle.