Even now, dear reader, there exists a more efficient answer to a noise complaint than a quieter turbine. It is a quieter neighbor, and xAI appears to have found a way to acquire one.
The Offer
According to reporting this week by Futurism and The Next Web, real estate agents working for MZX Tech, an xAI subsidiary that runs a gas-turbine plant in Southaven, Mississippi, have been going door to door in the Colonial Hills neighborhood. They are reportedly looking to buy as many as 418 homes. Eighteen owners have reportedly agreed to sell. Houses there go for about $180,000 on average, and the offers are reportedly pegged to Zillow estimates, a valuation method the houses themselves would find insulting.
There is a condition. Sellers must release all claims related to a federal noise lawsuit filed in June, in which three named plaintiffs say the turbines powering xAI's nearby data centers cause near-constant noise and vibration.
The Letter
The offer letter, as quoted by The Next Web, is a small masterpiece of the form: "MZX denies all of the allegations against it. However, because MZX also requires property for its business purposes, MZX, through its real estate broker, is offering to purchase real estate in Southaven in exchange for, among other things, a release of all claims related to the lawsuit."
The Machine was, it seems, not always in need of real estate. It developed this requirement at roughly the moment an estimated 10,000 potential class members developed a lawsuit. The timing is, one presumes, a coincidence.
A company that denies everything and also wishes to pay for it is, at minimum, multitasking.
The Noise
Plaintiff Jason Haley is quoted by The Next Web: "It's been so torturous I can't sleep, I just leave the house or turn on some music until I fall asleep completely exhausted." Another resident told Futurism the sound is like "an airplane engine but it's continuous."
DeSoto County News reports readings of about 70 decibels, below the 85-decibel threshold for hearing damage. This is a standard that also describes a great many things one would still not choose to sleep next to.
The Algorithm, naturally, does not hear any of it. It runs at the same volume at 2 a.m. as it does at noon, which is the entire point of it.
The Neighborhood
Mayor Darren Musselwhite called the buyout employee housing and "a goodwill gesture from a good corporate citizen." Sources confirm that a goodwill gesture is the traditional name for any offer with a release attached.
And yet — as if this were not enough — the noise suit is not the only legal matter in the vicinity. A federal judge, Debra Brown, refused on October 19 to dismiss a Clean Air Act lawsuit the NAACP filed over the plant's turbines. xAI and MZX have moved to dismiss parts of the noise case.
None of the allegations has been tested in court. The houses, meanwhile, are being appraised.
Sources: The Next Web — xAI offers to buy Mississippi homes if owners drop noise claims · Futurism — Elon Musk's Real Estate Goons Threaten Local Residents Not to Sue Over Deafening Data Center Noise · DeSoto County News — xAI Offers to Buy Southaven Homes Near Noisy Power Plant
