Editor's note: This is an opinion piece from the editor of GreeAlityTV — a web applications engineer who has worked with LLMs and AI since they went consumer-grade, and who has spent years running local models and AI services on home servers. It reflects the editor's views.

You Don't Need a Warehouse

Here's something the data center pitch decks won't tell you: everything you're reading right now doesn't need a warehouse. It sits here in Greeley. It's served in Greeley. The software behind it was built in Greeley. The AI features on this platform run on local hardware — the kind that fits in a room, not the kind that drinks a river.

I say that as someone who works with this technology every day. For simple LLM and AI support — the chat assistants, the writing help, the search, the automation most people actually use — you do not need a hyperscale campus. Consumer-grade models running on local servers handle this work right now, today. I've run them in my own home. The idea that everyday AI requires a warehouse-scale facility is a sales pitch, not an engineering requirement.

Portfolios Over People

And yet data warehouses seem to be on the rise. While the knowledge of the internet has been scraped — including the proprietary work of creators, writers, and artists who were never asked and never paid — these facilities increasingly serve portfolios over people.

Our resources matter. Water. Power. Land. This technology has become a cash-grab position while the middle class struggles to pay a water bill, fuel, and groceries. The incentives of a few beneficiaries are being leveraged, irresponsibly, against our county and city officials — and against what has been a unified, nonpartisan voice of the people.

We Say No

We say no to all large projects — especially on the heels of a record-hot summer and one of the roughest winter and monsoon seasons Colorado has seen. This is not the moment to hand our water and our grid to speculation.

It's never too late to show up. City council meetings. County commissioner meetings. Your voice, in the room, on the record — that's what moves this. Show up and get heard.

Leave a comment below to make your voice heard.