People don’t like data centers. Just check out this Gallup poll, or others showing how the majority of Americans do not want one of these water-hogs in their backyard, or really, anywhere else.
“Seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed,” writes Jeffery Jones. “Barely a quarter favor these projects, with 7% strongly in favor.”
Why? Well, that’s a whole other question. It’s treated, a bit, in a recent episode of one of my favorite podcasts, AI Daily Brief with Nathaniel Whittemore, as Whittemore looks into some of the psychology at work in grassroots protests spanning the nation.
A New Format
I think part of the story here is that AIDB has now rolled out a text summary form for its episodes. So if you don’t like listening to Whittemore’s voice (personally, I don’t mind it) or you’re in a hurry, you can get the main points in a page feed below the “listen” button. In this case, there’s a rundown of the intro topics, and then a cogent synopsis of the idea that hating data centers isn’t all about hating AI:
“It would go too far to say the backlash has nothing to do with AI — for some, data centers are the easy visual manifestation of a thing they don’t like. But that’s a small component. What this is far more about is a loss of agency: the feeling that a world people didn’t choose is being imposed upon them, by people in power they don’t believe have their interests as a priority, using technology they no longer believe is designed to serve them.”
Interestingly, Whittemore also puts some of the blame on the companies involved in the projects, which, he suggests, are doing a poor job of promotion.
“Data centers represent both the last straw and something tangible to fight. The companies building them don’t control that context — but they do control how they engage with it, and they are doing an absolutely abysmal job.”
The page then includes some notes on state by state actions, with a blurb about how “the politics keeps getting weirder,” with the tagline “the most bipartisan issue since beer:”
“There is a dimension on the left that views data centers as one of Trump’s great corrupt boondoggles, and the New York Times recently delivered a serious contender for juiciest headline in that genre. But this isn’t a left-right issue — Molly Taft’s Wired piece carries what may be the most insane subheader of the year, and the left and right are converging into very weird bedfellows here. Comedian Theo Von gave voice to the sentiment back in June, warning that one of these companies is going to own all this information, that a social or emotional credit score is coming, and that AI is going to try to become our new God.”
A White House Framework
One of the points in the episode’s prologue is the announcement of the new super-secret White House framework on AI, and the lack of public detail around it. I wrote about this a bit yesterday: critics ask, if we can’t see what’s in the framework, how is it supposed to work?
Here’s how the explainer page covers this:
“Representatives from the leading AI companies met with the White House Office of the National Cyber Director on Tuesday to discuss the new safety testing framework — and there are very strict limits on who gets to know anything about it. Even AI companies that weren’t invited won’t be told about the policy.”
Who is This Guy?
I was wondering who the National Cyber Director is, and whether I’d ever heard of him, so I googled it. The fellow’s name is Sean Cairncross, and his main claim to fame is as a senior advisor to Reince Priebus.
That’s all.
More Secrets
We also don’t know the guest list of who was invited to hear about the White House framework. Whittemore talks about the possibility that stakeholders are “failing to reach a common definition, which could muddy the waters for future releases.”
Questions include: will any approvals exclude foreign companies? Will there be a crackdown on near-frontier open models?
Whittemore cites this secondhand characterization of the White House strategy: “maximum flexibility for the government, minimum knowability for the industry.”
That sounds about right.
As for data centers, we’ll probably learn more about this fight in the months to come. Take a listen to the podcast, and write me a comment below, on your thoughts. Having the debate is essential, in a time where information, and everything else, moves quickly.