Pearl River      The American people, and many around the world, may have finally stumbled onto a crossroads with big tech after watching them change the world, line their pockets, and data mine all of us, living and dead.  The hill where the die is being cast, if not the one, they will necessarily die on, is plain and complexly, artificial intelligence.  People don’t understand it, don’t trust it, and don’t feel like they are being protected.  Couple AI with data centers and the abstract fears become concrete, since their construction and concerns over their seemingly boundless development turn out to be coming to a town near you, almost literally.  This is absolutely the silver lining running through dark clouds.

Adding spice to this toxic brew concocted by big tech is that in no small way, their greedy rapacity and ruthless expansion has created the problem.  Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Altman, and the rest first made outrageous claims for artificial intelligence and how it would reshape everything in our world.  Some advocated guaranteed income because so many jobs would disappear in its wake.  Some of its advocates and many of its enemies also posited threats imposed by out of control, unregulated AI that could leap tall buildings and endanger all of us.  Companies’ spate at each other for abandoning safety controls.  A flurry of reports began to surface on rouge AI hacking others, showing how to make bombs, and, even worst, just lying and inventing stuff, when it didn’t have the answer, making it unreliable.  Meanwhile, federal government and too many state and local governments became enablers for these tech giants and their trillion dollars’ worth of investments by passing legislation to speed approvals and stifle opposition, eschewing regulation, signing non-disclosure agreements, and hiding plans and developments from the public.

Now there are signs that they are reaping the whirlwind.  Pollsters and political analysts are claiming they have rarely seen an issue become so quickly and widely politicized.  Neither party seems to have a clear position yet, but, as the Washington Post notes, the issue is cropping up everywhere….

Americans’ sour mood about AI is becoming an inescapable fact for campaigns. Opinion polls show that a significant share of Americans are “very concerned” about AI’s role in the economy, don’t want data centers near them and believe the computer hubs will raise utility bills, fear job losses from AI, and generally believe AI will do more harm than good.

Many politicians don’t have any reliable answers for any of these concerns, because they have been total enablers and are in the pocket of big tech and the developers.  My own bet is that as this issue grows with frustration over the unsatisfactory answers to any of these concerns and the downright fears about unchecked artificial intelligence in our lives, many politicians and existing office holders are going to pay the price.

Governors like Louisiana’s Landry that have put a for sale sign on the state for Musk and Meta won’t escape accountability forever.  When arch-conservative Texas Governor Abbot claims he has implemented a statewide moratorium, you know they are all sweating buckets over this.  Local officials will also pay because of their impotence. It won’t take long for people to understand that a moratorium is just a ceasefire, not an agreement to end the tech invasions.  Nationally as another example, Vice-President Vance has been so Musk, Thiel and tech-adjacent that this could kill his chances of election in 2028, if he were nominated.

For organizers, data centers and AI are terrible campaigns, because the targets are still remote and disguised, and the handles are weak or nonexistent, enabling rage, but showing no clear paths to win.  For politicians, this is worse, because they face the same challenges, but in many, many cases, their hands are already dirty.