OpenAI and Anthropic are ruining San Francisco

It is not OpenAI's or Anthropic's responsibility to build housing in SF. It is the city's. Putting the heat on the mayor and supervisors is the correct move.

I've been "entertaining" myself recently with a report on how various Bay Area cities are tracking against their housing elements. Remember, these housing elements were their state-mandated plans for additional housing units between 2022 and 2030, and extra emphasis was put on this cycle to make sure the plans were realistic, accountable, and included (relatively) affordable housing.

We are close to halfway through this time period. San Francisco has built, according to this report, less than 10% of their commitment. They have a little over four years now to come up with 76K units. See: https://cities.fairhousingelements.org/cities/san-francisco

Last year they built 1.75K units. This year, by June, they had 400 units built.

This isn't an OpenAI problem.

SF is the quintessential boom town. Yet every batch of newcomers eventually thinks they have the right to be the last batch of newcomers and get to declare that the city should remain the same forever more, in its current state, perfected by their presence.

Their crime is compensating their employees too well, which this author thinks makes them responsible for higher rental prices?

The other complaint is that the author doesn’t think they see any benefit from all the taxes the companies are paying. Shouldn’t they be taking this up with the city? Companies don’t decide how their taxes are spent.

City that refuses to build housing and is stacked to the brim with NIMBYs has skyrocketing rents.

As much as I love to dunk on OpenAI and Anthropic, it's NIMBYs who "ruined" SF.

Abolish zoning, legalize housing.

"And that AI companies undoubtedly accelerated this economic turnaround. OpenAI has contributed $236 million in gross receipt taxes over the past several years, which is great for the city coffers, but the success has come with a damning cost."

.. that's generally how it works.

If the city wants more money from the companies, tax em.

I said as much on the subreddit, but I’ll repeat it here for emphasis: the idea that OpenAI and Anthropic are to blame for a housing crisis in a city of hundreds of thousands because of their hundreds of researchers is absurd, even for an opinion piece.

Do they pay back enough? No, they should of course be nationalized alongside YC and the rest of the giants. But this feels like performative anti-AI pot-banging than an honest concern (and I don’t think the author is prepared for the Molotov-laden Reign of Terror that is rapidly building towards…)

Isn't it more a matter of "ruining this version of SF, which was the result of the previous version(s) of SF being ruined by the previous silicon overlords"?