The Opposition Is Bipartisan |
Two things can be true at once. Foreign entities have seeded the opposition to data center growth in the United States. China, in particular, through its control of TikTok and other influence outlets, has relentlessly worked to stop the American AI advantage against China. Also, at this point, much of the opposition is organic, bipartisan and growing. Americans are deeply opposed to data centers. They are wrong and shortsighted, but my view is the minority view.
We should start by understanding the problem. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic and Sam Altman, the proprietor of OpenAI, are two of the worst spokesmen for AI and data centers to exist. In the movies, we were promised cool, slick and socially popular villains who could fool people into believing they were the good guys. In the real world, the villains announce their villainy upfront along with a large helping of weirdness.
Sam Altman recently bragged about how AI could learn your child's interests and develop a podcast your child could listen to on the way to school about their interests. God forbid you have to talk to your child. Dario........