A note before I start: We’re under two months from the Gel 2026 conference, our community gathering! Fri-Sat, Oct 2-3, in Accord, NY, two hours north of NYC.

Sign up now before the last-month price jump.

Data centers are creating vast amounts of noise pollution across the country, but no two sound exactly alike. If you haven’t sampled the varieties of auditory assault from Big Tech, listen to this 2-minute segment I created for the WFMU morning show. I included recordings of data centers from New Jersey, northern Virginia, and southwest Migichan.

If I had to describe the sounds of these data centers, it would be something like –

• New Jersey: lawnmower, amplified 10,000 times

• northern Virginia: jet engine, at full power, 24/7

• southwest Michigan: machines screaming in pain forever

I included all three of these recordings in my most recent Techtonic (Aug 10, 2026), called “Data center disasters.” Here’s the episode page with links and an embedded audio player, and here’s the podcast version.

Each of the recordings was made by a resident living near the data center. I found them from local TV news coverage: in each case, the reporter talks with residents affected by the noise pollution. In the Michigan clip, the data center was constructed directly across the street from an older couple who had lived in their house for decades. Now, every time they open their front door, they hear machines screaming in pain.

In each of the three news segments, the reporter dutifully reads a statement from the data center company claiming that they’re following all local noise regulations. And in all three statements, the data center companies getting community pushback are “taking it seriously.” They all use the same wording. So seriously do they take the local community, in fact, that . . . the noise continues, seven days a week.

Did anyone expect these companies – contracted and funded by Big Tech – to turn off the facility? It’s going to take a lot more than public shaming on local TV news to make a difference.

One thing that can help, and has defeated some data center proposals, is public participation in community board meetings. A great example is what happened recently in Wisconsin Rapids, WI, when former New York City mayor Eric Adams came to town.

If you haven’t been tracking this story, a quick catch-up: since leaving office amidst allegations of corruption, former mayor Eric Adams has apparently found a new career selling data centers for Big Tech. When he showed up at the public library in Wisconsin Rapids to extol the benefits of building an AI data center, citizens there were ready for him with boos, groans, and heckling. This is how we defeat Big Tech.

I’d recommend listening to the Techtonic episode (episode page / podcast) for an edited version of the Eric Adams incident – I play three short clips – but if you’d like the uncut (over 8-minute) footage, it’s on Reddit.

The most disturbing news recently from the AI companies is the revelations that they are, in the words of Futurism, “buying antique books, ingesting their contents to train models, and then destroying them at incredible scale.”

Emphasis on “destroying.” AI companies are buying rare books to ingest them into their plagiarism machines. As 404 Media points out, it’s because the books aren’t infected by AI slop. But instead of carefully scanning the contents, the AI companies rip off the binding and covers in order to feed the pages into an industrial-scale scanner – after which the shredded book is discarded.

I don’t need to remind you that other moments in history have seen widespread destruction, or burning, of books. The difference here is that the AI companies are operating “at scale,” as they proudly boast, which means that our cultural and intellectual heritage is being strip-mined, as I type this, and fed to the giant lawnmower, the jet engine, the machines screaming in pain forever.

We know how to fix this. Find your community and get inolved.

Until next time,

-mark

Mark Hurst, founder, Creative Good
Host, Gel conference
Radio show/podcast: techtonic.fm
Email: [email protected]
Follow me on Bluesky or Mastodon