The newest bipartisan issue: not wanting an AI data center next door
The first job AI replaces may be party loyalty.
Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds has attracted more than $5 million in support from a pro-AI super PAC. He is also losing Republican voters who do not want the industry’s data centers in their communities.
One Florida county, Hernando, has already approved a one-year moratorium on data-center applications. Members of No Data Centers Hernando County want a permanent ban, not a planning timeout.
Their protest was part of a Humans First campaign that staged 142 demonstrations across 42 states. The group is chaired by Tea Party veteran and former Stop the Steal rally organizer Amy Kremer, but its complaints—water, electricity, noise, surveillance and weak local control—closely resemble those raised by progressive groups.
Communities across the country are pushing back on data center construction. A recent Gallup poll found that seven in 10 Americans oppose construction of data centers in their area. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans and 75 percent of Democrats surveyed said they objected to local data center construction. Americans may be more polarized than ever, but the backlash to data centers is bipartisan — and it may cement new, surprising political alliances. The concerns animating the conservative backlash are similar to those motivating liberals: the environmental costs of data center construction and maintenance; the ethical problems of AI, ranging from its use for mass government surveillance to its effects on users’ mental health; and fears that having a data center nearby will hurt their quality of life. But there are also some partisan anxieties behind the right-wing data center backlash, namely the threat of Chinese infiltration of US technology.
Humans First, a once-bipartisan offshoot of the Center for AI Safety, is helmed by Amy Kremer, a longtime conservative organizer who is arguably one of the people most responsible for the Republican Party’s populist turn. Kremer was an early leader of the Tea Party and a cofounder of both Women for Trump and Women for America First, the latter of which hosted the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, DC, that devolved into the January 6th riots. (Kremer was not among those who stormed the Capitol.)
Florida has passed a law preventing utilities from transferring data-center costs to ordinary customers and preserving local authority to reject projects. Donalds has introduced a similar federal proposal while continuing to argue that data centers are an unavoidable part of American life.
Donalds is the Datacenter Candidate; can he survive?
In that picture, you can tell it's a data center because of all the "portable temporary" generator sets and because it's the only kind of big-box building where the parking lot is barely noticeable. No job creation here.
Strange bedfellows...