As a longtime resident of Northampton and scholar who studies the societal impact of artificial intelligence, I was pleased to learn that the Northampton City Council is considering a moratorium on the construction of data centers in our city. I applaud Council Vice President Deborah Klemer, who, according to an Aug. 21 Gazette article voiced concerns that such centers “present themselves as being beneficial to communities, but wind up causing harm with little benefit.”

The ecological ravages caused by data centers have been well studied and are widely known, and it is likewise true that they fail to create significant numbers of jobs due to the low number of personnel they require. I support any effort to follow the lead of Shutesbury and Holyoke, whose residents have banned such developments in their towns.

Comments from Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Stratton, however, gave me pause. He is quoted as stating, “I don’t think we want to become the regional center of this, but I also think we need to be a little bit careful that we’re not just offloading our work to some other community somewhere… What I’m really curious [about] is what is the data processing footprint of Northampton?”

It seems that Councilor Stratton is making an appeal against NIMBYism, as if to suggest that data centers must be constructed somewhere, so why not here? This argument leverages progressive values in support of the notion that AI is inevitable and that it is a fait accompli that an industry that has shown itself to be inherently anti-democratic will be embedded in the fabric of our country and its civic institutions. But nothing is inevitable, and we are living in a moment when communities across this country are gathering peaceful force to thwart the breakneck speed of this industry’s growth.

No one has an obligation to suffer for the development of a technology that is fundamentally detrimental to democratic society. Councilor Stratton is asking a contrived question, the answer to which is, why now? And why at all? Northampton should join the ranks of those who refuse to submit.

Sonja Drimmer, associate professor, UMass Amherst

Northampton