What is big, ugly, and has united

Republicans and Democrats at a time when

it has felt like nothing else could? AI

data centers. Last August, a heat map

news poll found that about 4 in 10

voters would oppose a data center being

built where they live. By May of this

year, opposition grew to 7 in 10.

Florida Governor Ronda Santis, a

Republican of course, has proposed a new

citizens bill of rights for AI. The

incentives [music] of big tech are not

the same as what's in the interest of

the people and the public.

>> Senator Bernie Sanders called for a

national data center moratorum.

>> This moratorum will give democracy a

[music] chance to catch up with the

transformative changes that we are

witnessing and make sure that the

benefits of [music] these technologies

work for all of us, not just the

wealthiest [music] people on earth.

There are over a hundred local or

statewide moratorium proposals across

the country. And here in New York,

Governor Kathy Hokll, not usually

thought of as a hardcore populist, just

imposed a one-year moratorum on [music]

data center construction.

>> These hypers scale AI data centers

consume enormous amounts of power. Truly

threatening to outpace our grid's

capacity

and they drive up costs for local

rateayers.

and I refuse to let those costs be

passed on to New Yorkers who already pay

too much for their utility bills.

>> So, I wanted to get into the fight over

data centers. How much of this is really

about water or electricity or aesthetics

and how much is about AI itself and the

companies that are behind it? My guest

today is Jasmine [music] Sun. Jasmine

has been doing excellent coverage of

both the culture inside the AI

companies, [music] unusual culture, and

the anger that is building against them

in the rest of the country. I highly

recommend following her Substack, but

right now she just finished a reporting

trip in the Midwest talking to the

people organizing against these data

centers and I wanted to hear what she'd

learned.

>> Jasmine Sun, welcome to the show.

>> I'm so excited to be here. So, you just

got back from a reporting trip in

Wisconsin and Michigan covering the

fight over data centers. Let's just

start with what you see when you're near

a data center. What does it look like?

>> I think one of the most important things

about rural Wisconsin and rural Michigan

is how beautiful it is. Um, I felt like

I was in Eden. I felt like I was in

paradise. It's incredibly lush,

incredibly green. And as you get closer

to a data center, you start to see more

power lines. You start to see more

towers. And eventually you just see what

looks like an extremely

large flat warehouse, but you just see

this sort of like verdant landscape give

way to what is a windowless industrial

park. Data centers are very ugly. Um, I

think I didn't appreciate this until I

started standing in front of them,

getting near them, listening to them.

People will time how long it takes to

drive past a data center on the highway

going 70 miles per hour in Port

Washington. I think it's like a minute

and 42 seconds. The size of these

things,

>> that's a long on a highway.

>> It is a long, long ride. Like these

hypers scale data centers are huge. They

are massive. And so I think that the

aesthetic questions right around is this

what I want my state, my community to

look like, these are really salient to

people. You mentioned hearing them. Yes.

What do they sound like?

>> Oh my gosh. I mean, they sound like

humming, buzzing, warring. Every once in

a while, you'll hear a rattling.

>> Residents who live next door to some of

them say they're producing noise that's

not only annoying, but debilitating,

like this right here.

>> But again, they're windowless. There are

not that many workers inside. Um, so

they're very mechanical sounds. They are

inhuman as a lot of folks would say.

>> So you spent a lot of time with people

organizing against data centers. Uh who

were they?

>> Um you had stay-at-home moms, you had

retired executives, you had um farmers

who didn't like the impacts on their

land. Uh you had activists, professional

activists with environmental groups in

the state. Um, it was an interesting mix

of people, but a lot of women relatively

more left-leaning, though definitely

some right-leaning folks as well.

>> So, one question I've heard people ask

is, how much is this different than

other kinds of industrial installations?

I mean, there are a lot of things that

are built all over the country that you

wouldn't necessarily want to be right

next to. Are data centers unusual in

this or are they, you know, from

fracking to industrial agriculture just

like the latest version of it?

>> It's a good question. It's one I had and

thought a lot about before I went. Um,

and I've talked to city officials who

are confused by this question of we had

a chip fab here, we had an auto plant

here, we had a fulfillment center here,

and nobody cared as much. Why are data

centers so much more unpopular than say

solar farms which also faced local

opposition in places like Michigan? And

so I think while the quality of life

concerns around this thing is loud and

annoying and ugly and consumes resources

are very similar to other industrial

projects um there must be some reason

that opposition is so much more severe

and widespread even beyond the

communities where the data centers are

literally being built. And I think that

question has a lot to do with the AI

with the AI industry and sort of the way

that people feel about these companies

and these projects.

>> When I read your reporting on this, when

I've talked to people involved in this,

it always feels to me there are sort of

three layers of concerns that are

converging

>> into what we call the data center

backlash. There's process,

>> then there's direct impacts,

you know, the environment, water,

electricity,

>> and then there's AI itself. And maybe

let's go through them sort of one by

one. One thing that I have been hearing

a lot of and and I've seen in your

reporting as well

>> is the anger over how these processes

are going and in particular the use of

NDAs which is not that common. Right.

I've covered a lot of

>> what does it take to build a housing

development and you don't tend to hear a

lot of the city councilmen got put under

an NDA,

>> right?

>> So what is happening with these NDAs?

Yeah, I mean this is also something that

really surprised me and um I think the

NDAs that I

>> should say non-disclosure agreements,

>> right? The non-disclosure agreements,

this has really inflamed the amount of

local opposition that you see. And so

basically what would happen oftentimes

is there would be some sense starting in

city council that maybe a big

development project was going to show up

but because of the NDAs the council

members would not be able to disclose um

that necessarily it was a data center

necessarily who the customers were going

to be a company like OpenAI or a company

like Anthropic or whoever um or even the

size of the project like how much

electricity is this actually going to

consume but whispers would start to get

around. I was talking to um a VP of a

construction union and he was saying,

you know, there's an old Irish saying

that the only way to keep a secret

between three people is to kill two of

them, which I thought was hilarious. And

so he's saying when these developers

show up, they talk to the general

contractor. The general contractor talks

to all their subcontractors, the

subcontractors talk to all their

workers. Yes, maybe everyone is signing

NDAs at every part of that process, but

whispers get around. And as soon as

whisperers get around, you start to get

social media posts. You start to get

rumors and the city council because they

are beholden to these NDAs, they lose

the ability to get ahead of the social

media narrative. That was something I

repeatedly heard from these local

government officials was we could not

get ahead of social media because we had

signed an NDA and rumors started getting

around.

>> But why do the companies want these NDAs

signed?

>> I mean, I think they didn't think about

it. They didn't realize there would be a

backlash. They just thought it would be

easier in case they change their mind.

These companies sign lots of NDAs with

their own workers, with anyone who works

with them. I don't think there's a good

reason. Microsoft has actually decided

to stop using NDAs because of the level

of backlash. I've heard from uh people

managing compute at some of the other AI

labs that they are thinking of making

the same decision. One thing that

surprised me is all of the pro data

center, probuild people who I spoke to,

whether workers or AI developers, they

all regret the NDAs. They all think that

they made the situation much worse.

>> What is the impact of a new data center

on water usage, water availability in a

town?

>> They do require some of it obviously

primarily for cooling the data centers

because these chips and servers run

really hot and they need AC. Um the

thing that's gone a bit wrong in the

water debate I think is that today's new

data centers are almost all closed loop

systems. closed loop in the same way

that air conditioning is closed loop

which means they're recycling the water

within the system and they use a

fraction of the water that you know golf

courses use and in fact in places like

Jainsville Wisconsin we would often see

a literal golf course right next to the

data center site but they do use some

and it has sort of become uh a very

sticky icon of like these things

resource consumption a lot of folks I

talked to in Wisconsin and Michigan they

would say things like you know they're

building right by the great lakes why

would they do that if they weren't

trying to drain the lakes Why would they

do that if they didn't need all this

fresh water?

>> And so your your view is at this point

the technology has changed such that

water is not as big of a deal as maybe

it actually was a couple of years ago.

>> I think the next thing people have heard

a lot about is energy usage.

>> So walk me through that.

>> Uh the electricity consumption issue is

real. So um data centers do in fact use

an incredible amount of electricity. Um

these uh these chips and these servers

that are processing gigantic

mathematical calculations to make AI

work require tons of energy. All these

chips and clusters are talking to each

other. You need the interconnections to

be really fast in order to get like a

chatbt answer really quickly with low

latency. You need these super fast

connections. All of that's powered by

electricity. So we are talking about a

really really significant amount of new

electricity that is going to require new

generators, new power plants. It's

probably going to be natural gas in the

near future. Once the data center is

fully operational, there is not a ton of

air and water pollution, assuming that

everything's working correctly. They are

relatively clean facilities, but you

know, like a lot of folks are concerned

about the electricity use. They're

saying, "Yeah, maybe the data center

doesn't use that much water. Maybe the

data center doesn't pollute that much,

but what about all of these, you know,

new power plants that they're going to

build in order to power it?" When the

tech companies come into these towns and

begin talking to the city council

members, when they begin talking to the

community, what are they sort of

promising on the one hand, right? This

this is why this will be good for you.

And what are they asking for on the

other?

>> Yeah. I mean, so these things do provide

an incredible amount of tax revenue,

right? And so, um, in Mount Pleasant,

the on the old Foxcon site, which ended

up being bought out by Microsoft, they

saw, oh, there's all this infrastructure

already here. Why don't we build a

hypers scale data center on this unused

industrially zoned land? Uh Microsoft is

on track to pay $19.6 million in

property taxes in 2026. This is expected

to continue for many years. Again, this

is a small village of 28,000 people. Um,

and so there are really meaningful

property tax benefits. And I do think it

I find it frustrating personally when

anti-data center organizers say that the

job creation is a myth because I think

that 500, you know, maybe six figure

jobs for folks who go through

apprenticeships, but maybe don't need

college degrees that last two to six

years. That's enough time to build a

family. That's enough time to buy a

home. I think it's super meaningful. And

when I talk to technicians, when I talk

to workers, clearly it was extremely

meaningful work. Um, I think what one of

the things that was the most surprising

to me when I talked to data center

activists was that they they responded

to so many of the proarguments with I

don't believe them. So like this company

says that they are going to treat the

water with chemicals in it so that it

doesn't flow into the lakes. People

would say I don't believe them. I don't

think they can do it. people would say

uh the companies would say we are going

to cover uh the cost of our own

electricity grid buildout. We are going

to ensure that rates do not go up for

all Michiganders. Um a lot of folks

would say I don't believe them. DTE has

raised our electricity rates basically

every year since 2022. Why would this be

the year that they decide not to do it?

I do not believe them. They are going

the we are going to create 500 jobs and

some of these will stick around after

the data center is built. people just

said I don't believe them. It was really

clear to me that data centers are

showing up in an environment of

extremely low trust in both governments

and in corporations to the extent where

the proarguments almost do not land

because people just aren't interested in

anything an outside tech company is

going to tell them. They say they have

big PR teams. They can say whatever they

want. One thing that became really

obvious to me when I talked to both

people at the AI companies and local

officials is that two years ago, no one

thought that data center backlash was

going to be like this. And so these

companies were in fact looking for

things like um does this state have a

sales tax exemption as Wisconsin does to

ensure that they don't have to pay sales

taxes on their very expensive chips on

their very expensive GPUs. Um they were

often looking to build in places that

might even offer local subsidies to the

companies for building in that area. I

think that a lot of the balance of power

has shifted as local opposition has

ramped up. Um, now it's the case that

I'm hearing from some local officials if

we did this again today, we wouldn't

have to offer any subsidies because in

fact now there is so much local

opposition that the developers are

really looking where is there going to

be a comm a local community and a

government that is friendly to our

project. How can we, you know, have a

Christmas tree ornaments worth of

community benefits agreements? And so

just the nature of these deals and how

much they are skewed towards communities

versus the AI developers has really

changed. One of the things that came up

a lot in your reporting and that I

thought was interesting was the fear

that this is a bubble

>> for sure.

>> And what's going to happen is your

community will agree to something and

then in the middle the bubble is going

to pop and you're going to end up with a

halffinish data center or one that is

not being kept up correctly or something

where the

>> you know promised benefits don't emerge.

I mean you were in Wisconsin which had a

very very bad experience with Foxcon

which seems to be structuring the way

people are thinking about at least some

of this.

>> So talk to me a bit about that uh set of

concerns.

>> Absolutely. Yeah. I think in terms of

what people in these communities with

these data centers feel when they see

the projects come in with their gigantic

like $2 billion of investment like these

gigantic numbers that are being dangled.

It feels like a bubble to them. One,

they're seeing news articles saying

maybe a AI is a bubble. We don't know

it's a bubble, but it could be. Two, you

do have exper experiences like Fox Con

where you have an big tech company show

up in a very small community, in this

case, Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, a city

of like 28,000 people. It's not very

big. Get, you know, hundreds of millions

of dollars in infrastructure investment

and tax subsidy from the from the town.

Promise 13,000 highpaying manufacturing

jobs and then pull out because the

contract wasn't set up correctly. they

decided they didn't actually want to

build a bunch of flat screen TVs in

Wisconsin and the you know the town is

left on the hook having invested all of

this money in the grid and in roads they

got I think a thousand jobs in the end

Foxcon is still paying back all of this

debt that has been accumulated and so

experiences like that have really really

soured people on the question of when an

outside big tech company comes in and

you know promises these gigantic numbers

and all of these jobs and all this tax

revenue and it's for this technology

that like you can't a lot of people they

don't see, they don't feel, they don't

find personally extremely extremely

useful, not at the levels of these

valuations. They have a lot of questions

about if the bubble pops, are we going

to be the ones left with a stranded

asset in our community? I mean, in

Jainsville, Wisconsin, um it was

famously the site of this 100-year-old

GM plant um that was the centerpiece of

the community that employed a ton of

people. when they left during the

financial crash in 2008 and the plant

closed down. Not only did it sort of

devastate the community from a work

perspective, um but they also left $30

million of contamination and hazardous

waste in the middle of the city that has

never been cleaned up. There's forever

chemicals in there. This is why

developers have not been able to sell

this brownfield is because there's so

much waste that GM never cleaned up. And

so I think that people worry about what

happens if the AI bubble pops. If maybe

it doesn't pop and the data center

developers just decide, never mind, we

want to build elsewhere. Never mind,

this data center isn't good enough. We

have newer, better technology. And who's

going to be left holding the bag? That

was the question I heard over and over

again.

>> But this is something that I do think is

in people's minds, right? You you bring

this in and right now you're at this

time of very very high valuations,

>> right? And if AI demand isn't quite what

you think or even just the company that

was behind this particular data center

is not part of the winner's circle

>> that in a couple years what you got is

this like giant

>> box.

>> Yeah.

>> That's not going to continue being

valuable. And so whatever the promised

benefits are from it, you know, tax

revenue, etc. Yeah. Maybe they show up

for a while.

>> Yeah.

>> But then what if in 5 years they're

gone, but you are left with this

infrastructure. It's like they can leave

Jainsville, right,

>> with no real concern. They're not there.

Their people don't live there, right?

But if you're in Jainsville, you do live

there.

>> Yes.

>> Yeah. A real concern.

>> You see the You see things like this

with Elon's giant Colossus data centers,

right, that he built out in Memphis?

>> And what makes people feel better about

a new construction project in their town

than calling it Colossus?

>> Oh, yeah. [laughter]

Yeah. I mean, these things

>> unairring touch for the people.

[laughter]

I mean, so usually the thing that

happens is they give them very cutesy

names like Project Canoli and the barn

and they try to make them sound as

friendly as possible. But yeah, I mean

with Colossus, XAI never really took

off. People were not in fact using Grock

as much as Elon thought he they were

going to be using it. And in that case,

he was able to get a really good deal

selling the compute capacity to

Anthropic, which was growing like crazy

and had not built enough data centers on

their side. But you could totally

imagine a world as you say where in fact

you know XAI decides we are going to

focus on space. We don't care about AI

anymore. Maybe there's non-anthropic to

pick up the bill because anthropic has

maybe built enough of their own compute

capacity. There is an open question

about what happens in that world. So uh

I wrote abundance uh last year with

Derek Thompson who published it

>> and one thing I've heard been asked by a

lot of people is like what is the

abundance take on a data center

>> and the like the beginning of that book

has this line that uh you know the

question is what do we need more of and

how do we get it

>> and I think the question here that has

been so [snorts] hard for the AI

companies for the people trying to build

data centers is

actually getting people to believe they

need more of them. Right? When you're

talking about building affordable

housing, when you're talking about, you

know, building an array of solar panels

or wind turbines,

>> there's a pretty legible argument.

>> Yes.

>> For why you need that, right? People

still may not like it, but we need homes

because we need places for people to

live.

>> We need solar panels because we need

clean, renewable energy.

How much is this like a normal kind of I

don't even exactly want to call it

nimism but uh but a normal kind of I

don't want the industrial infrastructure

built in my backyard because like you

know what am I going to get out of that

>> and how much of it is actually something

that is more related to people's

feelings about AI which is I don't want

this built here because why would I want

to pay the cost for a thing that I don't

want there to even be more of in the

first device.

>> This I think was one of my big

motivating questions going into this

trip is is it quote unquote normal

nimiism? Is it about AI? Is it about

something else? And so I spent time both

looking at polls and trying to talk to

people about would you be excited if

this was a chip factory which would use

a lot more water and pollute a lot more.

Would you be excited if it was a solar

farm? Also maybe acquiring agricultural

land and turning it into industrial use.

Would you be excited if it was a million

other things? And um I talked to Nick

Bagley who you've had on your show about

is this just proceduralism and we talked

about the solar farms example where

solar farms uh the opposition use very

similar tactics to the data center

opposition. They were organizing in

Facebook groups. They were packing town

halls. They were talking about the local

impacts and the importance of farmland

and the visions for their communities.

Um there were zoning fights of course.

Um, but like you say with the solar

farms, you do have a very clear procase.

You have a faction. You have a group of

people, a constituency, people who care

about the environment, who want

renewable energy, who understand that

that's a thing that, yeah, maybe it

sucks to have in your backyard, but you

can take one for the team because this

is important for our planet. Um, you

don't really have a pro- faction with

AI. Same with like the auto plant,

right? You have one, you have maybe

7,000 workers in the old GM plant in

Jainsville who all have families who

really care about them, who see that as

a constituency. Everyone drives a car.

They see their car as essential. I think

the fact that it's creating these

tangible outputs really, really matter.

Um, I don't think that data centers have

a compelling

proconstituency besides the utility

companies and the AI companies which are

already incredibly incredibly unpopular.

And I went in and asked these

organizers, do you guys use AI? I do

find it useful. This was one of the top

questions that my friends in San

Francisco wanted me to ask is, "Are

these people like using Chat GBT?" And

they don't even realize that the data

centers are how they can use it. And

what I found there was a lot of these

folks did say, "Yeah, I've used it to

draft an email or make a meme." They're

not denying that AI might have any

possible utility at all. Um, but they

clearly didn't see it as essential in

the way that cars, energy, and housing

are essential. They clearly saw it as

kind of like a widget, a toy. Um, and

maybe there are these risks, maybe

there's the job stuff, but fundamentally

they were like, "This thing is not that

useful. I don't really see in my

personal life how this could justify

these gigantic valuations." And so I was

talking to for example um Charles

Franklin who runs Marquette Law Polls in

Wisconsin and he was explaining that

usually you see 50/50 polling on issues

where you have a strong anti-case and a

strong proase and the only reason you're

kind of seeing this 7030 bipartisan

opposition to data centers no matter

whether you live near a data center or

you don't which means it's not just

nimism it's you don't want a data center

in anyone's backyard um is because he

was like there is no strong proargument

for it. There is not even a fight that's

really going on. Nobody wants it was a

phrase I heard over and over.

>> You have a very influential definition

of AI populism where you call it a

worldview in which AI is viewed not only

as a normal technology but as an elite

political project to be resisted.

Unpack that for me.

>> The phrase that you hear a lot from AI

critics is why is this being shoved down

our throats? um or with you know chatbt

it's not that people are saying there is

literally no use for chatbt it's people

are saying why are you forcing me at my

job to use AI to do something worse when

I could do it better and so I think that

a lot of the public backlash to AI that

has risen over the past six months is

not explained by people thinking that

the technology has no use at all um it's

not explained by them being worried

about specific technical property

properties of LLMs that might lead to

rogue AI or misalignment or whatever,

which are the sort of safetiest

arguments. It's AI as sort of an avatar

for a small group of Silicon Valley

billionaires ability to impose their

vision of the world onto everybody else

without their consent. And I think

that's also what I hear echoed in these

data center debates. It's not just uh

it's going to use this much water or

that much water. I frankly think that

even if there was no misinformation

about water use, people would be just as

angry about the data centers.

>> Yeah. I consider the water I don't want

to say the water issue is fake. Um what

I will say is like there was a debate

>> Yeah.

>> uh online a while back about how much um

water like a chachbd query

>> Yeah.

>> consumed. And somebody was like if you

really care about water are you are you

eating beef?

>> Yes. As someone who doesn't eat meat, I

thought this was a quite good like you

could really save a lot of water by

going vegetarian.

>> Yes.

>> Um and relatively much much more than

not using cha and relatively few people

in that conversation were giving up meat

>> or giving up YouTube videos

like use more water than a chachi query.

>> Which is to say that I think sometimes

people don't like a thing and they're

looking for reasons to justify that

dislike.

>> Yeah.

>> But what's actually happening at the

base is they don't like the thing.

>> Right. and the data centers like as

you're saying I think speak to this AI

populism question like even more

precisely because the issue with AI

itself is that I think people's

relationship to it is very complicated

right I have myself a very complicated

relationship to AI like I use it a fair

amount

>> I'm not sure I think it's a good thing

for society the way it is going I don't

want my kids using it I know they'll be

using it like maybe it'll make things

better but I really don't know like I

think that the costs are going to be

very very high for us relationally and

economically and you know and so I just

I'm very conflicted

>> but do I want to live next to a data

center? Yeah. No.

>> Yeah. [laughter] It's totally different.

>> Like that's easier.

>> I mean one of the most

>> somebody is just making you do that.

>> Yes. of like going to this um I back

toback I went to this Abdul Bernie AOC

rally in Lancing, Michigan and then I

went and saw the Seline activist the

next day and I was researching how the

Seline Stargate project happened and it

was really interesting to see these

echoes of the populist message sort of

manifest in this specific project. Like

when I'm at this rally, people are

talking about the oligarchy. talking

about uh corporate billionaires, whether

it's big tech or big pharma or DT, the

utility companies, um paying off

politicians in order to, you know, screw

the people over. And that's why you need

the people to come together and to get

money out of politics to prevent DT from

donating to these super PACs and paying

off Gretchen Whitmer or whatever. And um

then when I learned how the Selen data

center saga played out, what happened

was the Selen Township City Council,

unlike a lot of city councils actually

voted 41 against reszoning their land

for the data center. So this was a case

where local government said, "This is

not our vision for our community. It's

not worth it to us." And what happened?

The data center developers sued Selene

Township, a town of like again a few

thousand people, um into saying, "Wait,

no, this is exclusionary zoning. you

can't have no industrial use in your

entire township. And when a town of that

size is getting sued by a giant AI data

center developer, they just settled.

They were just like, fine, give us a few

million for the fire department and for

some schools. And this fight is not

worth it to us. But that to people felt

like a profound a profound violation of

little democracy. It felt like the dark

money and politics story, which is, you

know, you have some very rich companies

show up with the bag of money to your

politicians. They don't tell anybody

else what's happening. the politicians

aren't allowed to tell their citizens

and involve them in the decision-making

process and they themselves work out a

deal, a deal that is fundamentally

asymmetric because of the amount of

money on one side that will then

transform the image of your community,

your lived reality into the world that

these tech companies have decided for

you. And so I think that the data

centers in that sense are a very

visceral uh microcosm of the way that a

lot of people feel that AI is showing up

in their lives. I

>> I would also maybe even take that a

little bit further. I think that the way

that not all of the egg companies and I

think Anthropic has largely been a a

good actor here, but many of them have

acted has opened up such a chasm between

what they say and then how they act

under pressure that one should be

incredibly incredibly skeptical of them.

And what I mean by this is that,

you know, Sam Alolman and all these

different people, you know, in front of

congressional testimony and in

interviews will say, you know, it should

not just be us making these decisions.

There should be a real deep small D

democratic role here in how AI rolls out

in um, you know, what effects it has on

communities and how it is governed.

And then when a community or a

politician

you know who is representing a community

tries to say well we don't want the

status here or we want to impose these

regulations.

>> We have watched repeatedly these

companies

>> turn tremendous amounts of financial

artillery.

>> Yes.

>> Against whoever is standing in their

way. Right. and to to use this the

expertise and the money and the power

they are amassing to kind of

shortcircuit that democratic voice.

>> Yeah. I mean a couple things. One is

like I think one big gap I noticed

between Silicon Valley and the folks in

these communities I was talking to is

Silicon Valley does tend to think that

money solves all problems. That if you

just make the check bigger everything's

going to be okay. And I think people

have a sense for I'm being bribed. This

corporation is not offering me a free

lunch or whatever. there's going to be

something that I'm losing here. And in

fact, sometimes the fact that the data

center deals were bigger or the amount

of political spending was bigger.

Actually, it just makes people more

suspicious. Like in the Abdul race, like

his number one like hit on Haley Stevens

is how much money she is getting from

Apac, from DTE, from Pharma, whatever.

And so, one is just that I think we're

in a political environment where making

the numbers bigger and the amounts of

money bigger makes people more

suspicious, not less. Another one I'll

just quickly mention is I don't even

think anthropic should be left off the

hook for things like labor market

impacts, right? They are the ones

simultaneously warning that we might see

a you know 50% of white collar jobs lost

by 2030. This is really important to us.

We're freaking out about it. Uh Daario

has written in his essays um we might

see an underclass of people of lower

intellectual ability and they are

building the agents. They are building

the coding agents, the banking agents,

the design agents that they know are

going to displace jobs or they believe

at least are going to displace jobs. And

I think that people feel that hypocrisy

as well, which is if you are so worried

about the inequality, why are you

building the agents to do it? And when I

ask executives and researchers and

whoever at anthropic this question, they

don't really have a good answer because

it is true that their business model is

fundamentally premised on the disruption

that they say they are causing. You did

a big piece for the Times on the very

widespread belief in Silicon Valley that

they will create this underclass.

>> Yeah.

>> What does the underclass mean to them?

>> The idea of a permanent underclass

caused by AI is basically a world where

any job a person can do either AI or a

robot can do for them. which means that

workers lose all the economic leverage

they have and capital owners, people

with money, can simply pay machine labor

to do all the work instead of paying

workers. What that means is anyone who

earned their living by working is no

longer able to do that. You end up with

a world of runaway inequality where the

rich get richer and the working class

gets poor. Maybe they get some welfare

checks, but fundamentally it's a loss of

economic mobility in a society. And when

I ask folks in Silicon Valley, do you

think by default AI is going to increase

or decrease inequality? I have not yet

heard anyone say it will decrease

inequality or keep it the same. They

might say the floor will get really

high. They might say AI will bring the

cost of consumer goods down and so

people's lives are going to get cheaper

and you know everyone will be super

healthy so it's okay. But I have not

heard a single person in the tech

industry tell me that they believe that

AI is going to decrease inequality. And

in fact, many people are very worried

that instead most workers will lose

their leverage and be on a kind of

permanent welfare in the faroff future.

>> I I'm pretty skeptical of this vision,

although I don't rule it out, right? It

might happen. Although, I just don't

think AI is going to be quite as

revolutionary as a lot of these people

think and will not diffuse into the real

world as easily. But, you know, the

thing you're going to need to adjust to

any major technological change is time.

And then also it's like the AI industry

is in like an allout war to make sure we

have as little time for adjustment as

possible. [laughter]

>> I mean look at I just find it hard to

like unnot that

>> how many enterprise salespeople are open

AI and anthropic hiring in order to

convince companies that they can replace

their workforce or not maybe not replace

but expand their workforce with agents

instead of humans. Right? They are

having these sales conversations trying

to persuade people of these questions. I

don't think that a permanent underclass

is the likeliest outcome economically

that we're going to get. I think that AI

is actually just really jagged and human

jobs are super complex and super hard to

automate. And most of the folks who are

predicting economic apocalypse haven't

actually worked enough real jobs to know

how complicated and how multiaceted most

jobs really are. But I definitely agree

on the speed point. I think that like

Alex economist has made this point very

well. Um, one thing I think a lot about

are people say, well, humans can adjust,

humans can reskill, they can retrain,

they can just do the new jobs that we're

going to develop instead. But you look

at things like software engineering

where people will often say now, um,

senior software engineers are doing

great. They love cloud code. Um, junior

software engineers have been mostly

replaced and you see hiring and job

postings are down in that sector. Well,

do we think that a human software

engineer is going to rescale or upskill

themselves faster than the next model is

going to get better at software

engineering? That's the question that I

really wonder about is if AI progress

outpaces humans ability to reskill,

retrain, upskill, adapt, then I'm not

really sure what there is going to be

left there. There will be some jobs

left, but it's going to be a really

really painful adjustment. I have had so

many people at the top of these

companies, right, the very tippy top,

tell me they wish all this would slow

down.

>> Yeah,

>> I'm sure you have had them say this to

you, right? But in this world where

in their unguarded moments, they will

say they wish all this was going slower.

Well, one way to slow AI down is to

constrict the number of data centers you

can build.

>> Yeah.

just like you've done, you know, as good

a reporting as anybody on just how

conflicted people even working for these

companies seem to be about what they are

building and yet that yet they're in

this competitive race to build it as

quickly as possible.

>> And so it makes them a pretty

unconvincing

>> pro faction.

>> Oh, absolutely.

>> We're building the thing we're telling

you to be afraid of and we need to build

it as fast as possible even though we

sort of admit that it would be better if

the whole thing was slowed down.

It's very confusing.

>> It's a weird argument.

>> Yeah, it's so confusing.

>> I remember when I sat down with Abdul

Aliad, the Michigan Senate candidate, he

cited Dario's 50% white collar job lost

stat probably like five times in the

30-minute conversation. It's like he was

like, they're saying that there's going

to be recursive self-improvement and it

might kill us all. Like, yeah, I get why

you would not want to make this thing go

faster. This is true for data centers,

but it's true for any other reason way

that you might slow AI down, which is

that everyone only wants to be slowed

down if they can guarantee that the

other companies that the Chinese labs

are going to slow down with them. So

long as that's not true, they're going

to keep racing. And I think for that

reason, yeah, I mean, the thing that I

hear when I talk to people at the

companies, data center executives about

the buildout is how much money do we

need to give these cities to let us

build a data center? tell us how to

bribe them better. Tell us what we can

do. And so when I talk to them about the

buildup, I'm not hearing any sort of

personal moral reckoning with slowing AI

down. I'm hearing how do I make the

bribes bigger? How big do they need to

be?

>> So then how do you reconcile what

many of these executives, many of these

AI company workers are telling you about

their fears of creating an underclass,

about their fears of losing control. I

mean we just saw the situation where uh

open AI's model was breaking out of a

sandbox in order to sort of cheat on its

evaluation right so the AI safety people

are very worried right the safety teams

in here clearly don't have full control

or even understanding of what they're

building

>> how do you reconcile if you reconcile

the way the AI companies talk when they

are giving voice to their fears or the

people at them talk when they're giving

voice to their fears

and their like pretty profound hostility

to anything that would slow down how

fast we are building this thing whose

consequences they freely admit they

cannot predict.

>> Yeah, it's fascinating because just on a

very personal level when I talk to

people at these companies I just think

like man if I thought this thing might

have a 10% chance of killing us all or

taking taking everybody's job I wouldn't

work on it. I would not build that. I

personally [laughter] could not morally

justify taking that chance. And and when

I talk to people who are not in the San

Francisco AI world, they feel like I do.

They're just like, why would you do it?

And I think there are basically three

rough buckets of rationale that I hear

from people um or that I hear between

the lines from people. One is um this

sort of sense of technetism.

It's super intelligence is going to be

built inevitably. there is no way it's

not going to happen. If it happens, I

want to be part of it. I want to make my

money from it. I want to maybe make it

happen in the least bad way. I think

that's a super common answer. Another is

um

this technology might kill us all, but

it also might be really amazing. It

might produce super abundance for

everybody. We might be immortal.

um it might double everyone's lifespans,

cure all diseases, bring the cost of

every consumer good, housing, energy,

whatever to near zero. And that would be

utopia. And so I think all the time to

that anecdote that I think SPF said on a

podcast where it's

>> Sam Bankman Freed.

>> Yeah, Sam Bankman Freed sent out a

podcast where it was like if you could

flip a coin and it was 51% odds you

would double the total amount of like

human welfare and 49% chance everyone

dies, would you flip the coin? He says

yes. And again, I feel compelled to say

like caveats here of like, you know, how

do you really know that's what's

happening? Blah blah blah, whatever. Put

that aside. Take the hypothetical, the

pure hypothetical. Um, uh, yeah. Yeah.

>> I think this is a hyperbolic example,

but I think it's not actually that far

off from what a lot of the people

building super intelligence believe too,

that they are basically willing to flip

the coin. Maybe we all die, but maybe

we're all immortal, and that expected

valuewise cancels things out. Um, and

then the final category is just I think

folks who are so fascinated by the

technical endeavor of whether we can

build this thing and how to do it that

they just aren't super worried about the

consequences or what else might happen.

Um, so people have all sorts of

self-justifying narratives as to why

it's worth it. Some I think are better

than others. Um, but it makes sense to

me why the public is not particularly

sympathetic to any of these.

>> I mean that middle narrative I I heard

Sam Bankman Freed say that. I think it

was on Tyler Cowan's podcast and

>> I was like, "Oh, that's psych that's a

psychopath,

>> right?" To actually believe that, you

would have to be a a psychopath, you

would have to have a very very very low

value

>> on I think human life. Yes.

>> Right. [snorts] Imagine being the person

who flips that coin and it comes up

wrong.

>> Oh Jesus. Yeah.

>> Like I'm a parent.

>> Mhm.

>> That like the idea that you would do

something that's like 5149 on like your

kid is, you know, doubly happy or your

kid is gone. like you would never you

you like you don't even want to say that

out loud.

>> Of course, I think that's how almost

everybody thinks about it. And again, I

think 5149 is obviously the most

egregious example you could think of.

And so SBF is very unsympathetic. But

when I think about the super

intelligence bet, a lot of people will

characterize it as a 9010 bet, as an

8020 bet. And this question of how much

is an acceptable amount of either

extinction risk or total disempowerment

risk. Um, you know, I think people have

very different risk appetites and

Silicon Valley is a place that has

always prized their high risk appetite.

I think that makes a lot more sense when

you're talking about maybe yourself or

your company full of people who have

opted into taking a very high-risisk

endeavor. I think that's extremely

different obviously when you're talking

about the rest of the world. And one

thing with the data center debates that

I'd always hear is like, you know, I get

that these people are making this crazy

bet on this technology. They think it's

going to change the world, but why do

they have to do it in our backyard? Why

is Mark Zuckerberg not building a data

center in his backyard? And so this

question of yeah, you guys are going to

create like these very tangible impacts

and to their view harms on specific

communities that are not the communities

benefiting from this technology. At

least they don't see the benefits yet.

They don't see the cancer cures. They

don't see themselves getting these

million dollar million dollar salaries

that the AI researchers are getting. It

feels like I think it feels to a lot of

these folks like they are pawns in some

tech billionaires' game and they do not

like to feel that way.

>> Why aren't they building it in their own

backyards? Why don't you see a bunch of

data centers in, you know,

>> I mean, I don't

>> Northern California. [laughter]

>> I don't think I need to tell you why

it's so hard to build in Northern

California.

>> But I I both I both think that's true

that it's hard to build in Northern

California. But I also think there's

like a truth to the other thing being

said they don't want them there. No,

>> I mean the land is expensive. It would

be very hard like and expensive to build

a data center like the places we're

we're talking about.

>> But it also gets at a core truth which

is people don't actually want data

centers around them. It is a cost. It is

a concentrated cost for a diffuse

benefit.

>> Like if you believe in the benefit.

>> Yeah.

>> So I think that's part of it.

>> I want to go back to the first bucket

you were talking about which is like the

race dynamics.

>> Yes.

So, at the most generous, the thing that

I've heard repeatedly is sort of what

you're describing, which is it would be

better if this were going slower,

but I can't control that because I

whether I'm at, you know, Anthropic or

Open AI or Google or Meta,

>> you know, if we slow down, it just is

our less ethical competitors over there

who speed up. And even if you put down

legislation slowing down all of America,

then it's China,

>> right?

>> You know, the CCP

which is going to to win the race.

>> I guess one question is, do you buy this

central metaphor of a race that has a

like a ticker tape line where at some

point somebody passes it and then they

have the recursive super intelligence

and like the race is over? Or do you see

this more as like most technologies like

a kind of like a linear

set of gains? I mean can be fast, can be

slow, but that doesn't have that

somebody is going to win dynamic.

>> Yeah, I find this really confusing. One

of the first things that I um did when I

started reporting more deeply on AI was

try to figure out what AGI meant because

a lot of the way that this race has been

characterized is who will build AGI

first? who build artificial artificial

general intelligence first. Um thing

first thing I found no one agrees on

what that means. Uh AGI means everything

from techn AI that can build itself to

AI that can do all human jobs to AI that

produces whatever number of economic

value. Um and so everyone has these

different milestones for what

constitutes AGI to them. What that also

means is that the race has different

finish lines and moving finish lines.

And I think that like you see the way

that these uh models perform differently

on benchmarks. They are extremely

jagged. They can be super good at math

and they can be super bad at poker at

the same time. Um they can be yeah

amazing at cracking cyber security

problems but not able to build anything

in the physical world. And because of

that I don't think that technology is a

as general as people suggest it is. I

also think that means that it is much

harder to define a finish line to the

race and my sense is that the race

because you cannot adjudicate it,

everyone will always feel that they are

falling behind on some dimension. I mean

to then make the case for that these AI

companies are making is they do believe

in this recursive self-improvement. They

think that you know OpenAI, Google, deep

mind and anthropic are all extremely

focused specifically on the question of

can we build AI that builds itself? Can

we build an AI that can train the next

generation model completely from scratch

on its own? And in that sense, you get

an exponential pace of improvement for

whoever can hit that recursive

self-improvement curve first. And they

think that this might lead to that

company pulling ahead. Right now, folks

think that it's anthropic, which has the

best coding models, meaning they can

code faster, meaning that their next

models are even better.

I can see where that argument is, but

I'm not sure when we look at, you know,

the latest anthropic models versus the

latest open AAI models versus the

latest, you know, Chinese open weights

models that we see a company pulling

ahead that decisively in that way,

especially when every single company in

lab is using the same recursive

self-improvement strategy. And so,

basically, I don't know that the race

has a finish line. And that's what

worries me about it continuing.

>> The reason I want to focus in on this

race metaphor for a minute is I've come

to think it is really one of the central

dividing lines in how you think about

different kinds of AI policy.

>> Whether you think that we are in a race

with China to get to the point where one

side or the other is going to pull like

endlessly and decisively ahead because

they hit that, you know, recursive

self-improving level.

Well, then that means what you do in the

next 1 to 3 years is incredibly

incredibly definitionally important.

[sighs]

>> But if you don't believe that, if you

believe something more like yes, this is

a powerful technology. It's a powerful

technology that might have a lot of

downsides, might come with a lot of

social instability.

Um, its effect on a society may not be

good. then

let's run faster to the bad place is not

nearly as compelling an argument. And

all of a sudden the idea that we should

have policy in place that slows things

down for more voice for more

consideration.

It's not crazy. And I guess one place

this goes is that I have begun to notice

like a really interesting convergence

between the SFAI safety people

>> in a way and like the AI populace like a

Bernie Sanders or in a different way

Abdul Alad

>> who are getting to not that different

places but through very very different

mechanisms right they're like the AI

safety people who actually believe we

are in a race

>> but they believe that winning that race

might bring the end of humanity Right.

>> And so like they don't they don't want

to move that fast, right? If we began to

slow down, we would have more

credibility for negotiating with China

and like trying to come up with like

international treaties and all the rest

of it, you know? And then you have like

the kind of more AI populous side who

just like doesn't want to give all these

tech billionaires all this power, who

doesn't believe this technology will be

good for people, and they're starting to

come up with like maybe not the policies

AI safety people would, but you know,

data center moratoriums and things like

that.

And so you have this sort of slightly

strange

like you would not have considered this

coalition.

>> It's super interesting. I mean you

literally have Ronda Santis doing AI

roundts with Max Tegmark who's been one

of the leading advocates of pausing and

slowing down AI, an MIT professor, and

you have Bernie Sanders doing viral

videos with Eleazar Yudkowski. Um the

guy who's telling us that AI is probably

going to kill us all if we build it. Um,

I was talking

>> just both in lines and doesn't and does

kind of makes it, you know what I mean?

[laughter]

>> Yeah, totally. I've been spending some

time in DC this year to talk to some of

these AI populists, some from the social

conservative right, others from say the

labor left. And um, this Bannon guy I

was talking to told me he's like, you

know, like I wouldn't send my kids over

to a playday at the polycule, but I can

do coalitions. And so I think it's been

one of the most interesting uh,

political stories going on right now is

the sort of strange bedfellows that have

emerged. I mean, even with the data

center stuff, I was talking to an

activist and they were saying these were

liberal women who had gotten into

politics after the 2016 election of

Donald Trump. They said that data

centers were the first thing that got

them to talk productively with their

Trump voting neighbors about politics,

the first thing in like 10 years almost,

which is fascinating to me. And in this

sense, they felt a really strong sense

almost of uh political agency that

almost came out of this fight. Um, so I,

yeah, I think one of the big questions

that folks in AI safety, for example,

are thinking about is, do we want to

build these alliances with the rising

left and right populist waves in

American culture in order to slow AI

down? Maybe it's okay that we have

different reasons and different theories

for why AI is so dangerous. For one

person, is big model bad. For another

person, it's big billionaires bad, big

tech bad. Um and those folks are sort of

linking arms in a lot of ways against uh

the AI accelerationists and sort of the

folks pushing the race faster. So I

think it listening to this we've been

sort of living in the data center

moratorum side of the politics.

But what's the other side of it? What

are the problems with just saying okay

fine like let's not build any more data

centers?

one like this is not actually the way

that you would successfully slow down AI

if that's what you really wanted. Um one

if you if one locality or one state

imposes a moratorum AI companies are

very very happy to go to other states or

other countries. They are already

flooding into Texas for example because

it's had such a pro data center

environment. People are looking at

Louisiana, the Dakotas, Australia. Um,

space of course is a current big

interest of Elon Musk's because people

think that maybe not now but in five

years we can just put all the data

centers in space and solve the political

problems that way. So one is I'm not

really sure that this would stop AI

progress that much. It would just shift

the data centers to other places that do

welcome them. Um the second thing is I

actually do think that there are ways

for these deals to be good. Not every

community should want to data center. I

think that many of them may discuss it

and say this isn't what we want. We

don't need the tax revenue that bad. But

in a lot of the cases with these sites

that I visited like you know in the old

GM site in Jainsville, the Vidian

Partners, the data center developer was

going to clean that brownfield up. They

were the only ones willing to do so. I

talked to a real estate broker who had

tried to sell the site for 5 years and

he couldn't do it because not a single

other commercial buyer wanted to clean

up all of this hazardous waste. Only the

data centers were willing to do that. Or

with Mount Pleasanton, the Foxcon site,

right? They had already cleared all this

land. They had built all this

infrastructure. Putting a data center

there was a net improvement for the

community most in my opinion personally

from an economic perspective, from the

perspective of there was nothing going

on there anyway. Um, so I think that

there are ways to do these deals, right?

There is enough money in this industry

that a lot of communities will decide it

is economically beneficial for them to

bring in these jobs and bring in this

investment. But I think that the way

that the data center deals have been

done nearly guarantee the amount of

public backlash that there's been. And

the thing that will probably fix it, I

suspect, is probably um either like a

state level streamlining where someone

does the research probably at the state

level, maybe at the federal level to

figure out what is the fair way to do

these deals. How do we ensure the

communities get the most transparency,

the most benefit out of data center

deals when they happen? So it's not case

by case and it's not so asymmetric with

a town of 12,000 negotiating with an

open AI or whatever.

>> I would add two other things to that

that I'd be curious to hear your take

on. So one you mentioned data centers

moving towards other localities and

those localities are not randomly

selected. They're localities that are

going to impose fewer conditions. So

maybe that is fewer environmental

conditions but you know in the case of

maybe a UAE or some of the Gulf states

that are interested here you know you're

looking at more authoritarian countries

right so I've heard a lot of people

worry about that or you know Elon Musk

in space. Uh so in a sense if you make

it so the data centers cannot go into

places where there is more democratic

control they might you might end up with

less overall democratic control. The

other thing and and I do think this is

significant is that there is right now

more demand

>> for compute than there is compute.

>> Yes.

>> You know people talk a lot about a

bubble but we do not look to have excess

AI supply at the moment. Mhm.

>> And if demand keeps rising because you

know the coding agents get better and

all the rest of the things we know that

are happening but you are constricting

the supply of compute

then you end up with more inequality and

who can afford it. So you know a Goldman

Sachs a JP Morgan right so you know a

company with a lot of money to buy

compute is going to have a lot of it and

then you know ordinary users small

businesses etc. If you believe AI is

important and powerful and I believe it

is important and powerful then you have

a problem where you have created much

more stratification and who can afford

it. How do you think about those

dimensions of it?

I think with where you build the data

centers, a lot of folks are starting to

look at building AI infrastructure as a

form of geopolitical leverage, right?

And so some countries like places like

Australia, Canada, um countries in

Europe are thinking actually maybe the

way for us to get a slice of Frontier

AI, for us to negotiate with uh the

countries where the best AI is being

developed like the US for in cases like

cyber security access um is to say, you

know, we'll build your data centers

here. will actually welcome you in and

in return uh maybe you guarantee us

access to the frontier models. Um so I

think that one is that we should look at

a AI infrastructure as a point of

leverage um that both states and

countries have and as you mentioned if

local moratoriums in the US if domestic

moratoriums or something like that lead

to giving that leverage and negotiating

power to authoritarian states that's

probably something the US should be

really worried about. On the other hand,

there are folks like um Anton light at

Carnegie has done work on this where

it's can we give our allies, can we give

our democratic allies um negotiating

leverage through them building out

compute. The second thing that you

mentioned about pricing is interesting

because I do think one of the big macro

trends in AI right now is the closing of

the frontier. It's the fact that the

very best models like mythos from

anthropic are not being open to

everybody. That is both a safety

decision as in we don't want to give

really powerful cyber weapons and

bioweapons to a bunch of bad actors or

just unknown actors. It is also a

pricing question of the best models are

really really expensive to run. They

don't have enough compute to run them.

And so we're going to have to charge a

lot of money or only give it to the

biggest corporations. And I think that's

a reason that startups are worried uh

that countries outside of the US are

worried that normal people are worried

maybe we get super intelligence and I

can achieve all these amazing things but

I'm not going to get it. Maybe my boss

is going to get the super intelligence

and they're going to automate my job but

as a worker as a consumer I'm not going

to be able to do the same thing. So I

think it's also a really good point that

if we don't continue the compute

buildout, we do see a world where it is

the folks with existing capital and

access probably big corporations in the

US and the US government that are going

to have access to Frontier AI and all

the benefits that it confers.

>> You were in China for a trip reporting

on AI. Was there much political AI

backlash and ferment there from what you

could see? I was super interested in

this question on this trip because I was

finishing my times piece on the

permanent underclass while in China. And

so I was basically asking everyone I met

there, whether it was engineers at the

labs or just my family members or sort

of normal middle- class people in

Shanghai. Um, are people worried about

AI and jobs? Um, are people worried

about AI and social instability? Um, I

think the answer is not as much. I

caveat this of course with the fact that

the information environment in China is

obviously suppressed. you can't uh

dissent um in public on social media

nearly as much as you can in the US. You

don't have good polling. So, it's kind

of hard to understand the actual level

of social discontent there is in China.

But I would say that for the most part,

people were not as terrified of AI as

they are in the US. Um there's a few

explanations for this. Some people say

that China is more technoptimistic than

the US is. I don't love this explanation

mostly because the thing that I heard

was not exactly optimism. It was not

exactly, yeah, we're going to get the

cancer cures and the super abundance. It

was something a lot closer to

technology is a force that cannot be

stopped. It actually in some ways

reminded me more of some of these

Silicon Valley beliefs that the future

is predetermined that when the state

decides that something like AI is a

national priority that is going to march

forward and as an individual there's not

much you can do to resist especially in

a one party state in a authoritarian

society there is no culture of

resistance really and so rather than

thinking about how do I prevent AI in my

workplace or in the world that's not

really a thing that a lot of people in

China think about it's how can I use AI

to make sure I don't fall behind. in an

environment that already has crazy

levels of white collar competition and

white collar unemployment. If you're if

you're not upskilling yourself with, you

know, open claw or whatever, there's a

million people in line behind you who

are going to get on the bus. At the same

time, I think that the Chinese state

takes a pretty different approach to the

US. Um, when it comes to AI regulation

and also to technology regulation in

general. And so, uh, China has passed

laws sort of banning a lot of kinds of

companion chat bots because they're

worried about relationships. They're

worried about fertility rates. um

they're worried about addiction. Uh

China has passed uh made court rulings

that say that AI replaced this worker's

job. AI can do this worker's job is not

a good enough reason to lay off a

worker. Um you have regulations that

require all AI generated images to be

labeled and you'll see the made with AI

sort of language on all of the AI made

ads in China. And so there's also a

sense that some people, some Chinese

have that their government is more

likely to look out for sort of the

social downsides and the labor downsides

relative to the US government which has

thus far been pretty less a fair

especially at the national level. Right.

And that gives some people a bit of

soulless as well.

>> There's been some reporting that China

and Russia are pushing sort of anti-data

center oh yeah

>> memes and you know social media bots. Uh

it's hard for me to tell what scale that

is, but it has been very much picked up

on by like people like Kevin Olri the

for the Shark Tank guy who's you know

big data center project has faced a lot

of backlash.

>> Do you buy the the sort of growing view

among like at least some tech elite that

the data center backlash is like a

Chinese scop?

>> I think this is ridiculous to be honest.

I mean, so I read the OpenAI report that

was saying like this is all a CCP plot

and like it pastes in the accounts and

the tweets that are doing the SCOP.

These tweets have like no likes on them.

They have two views per tweet. So I'm

not doubting that. Like I'm sure some

clever CCP propaganda person has

attempted to inflame the anti-data

center sentiment. I have not seen

evidence that any of this is working. I

think it feels very organic. I think I

also tend to be personally a little

suspicious when you just castle your

political opponents as being

misinformed. I think there's a way in

which people use foreign influence to

avoid thinking about the fact that there

are people that they live with in

society who do not agree with their

vision of the world. And when I talk to

these uh data center activists for

example, they are actually much less Tik

Tok adult and misinformed than I think

people like to caricature. A lot of them

understand sort of the basic facts of

what's the difference between an AI data

center and the old kind of data center.

how much what's the difference between a

closed loop system and an openloop

system? Most of these people are not

just misinformed. They have just

personally decided I'm not that

interested in having a data center in my

community even if it pays some property

taxes.

>> So when you talk to people in the AI

companies and and sort of talk to them

about this backlash, I know they're very

worried about this, right? I've talked

to them about this.

>> What are they learning from it? I do

think that this year in 2026,

I've AI executives, AI researchers have

started to take the public backlash a

lot more seriously than they have in the

past. Um, I've heard executives ask,

"Can we do better marketing? I don't

understand why it is that Whimos are so

unpopular." Um, I've heard executives

ask, "What do you think are the deals

that we should be making? Do you think

we should just be mailing checks to

every house that lives near a data

center project? Will that fix things?

Um, like tell us how to make a better

deal. Do we need to cut people's

electricity prices in half? Would that

work? Unfortunately, the word bribe gets

used a lot more than I am personally

comfortable with. I think that when you

are framing the thing you're doing, even

jokingly, as bribing communities into

putting a data center there, I don't

think you're starting off on the right

foot. Um, I think that people can feel

when they are being bribed. I've heard

these people say these companies are

biting us. Um, so there's a little bit

of examination. The thing that I don't

think is being examined as much as I

want it to be though is are we building

a technology? Are we building a product

that is helping people?

>> Yeah. The version of this I have heard

is we have a marketing problem. Maybe we

should stop saying aloud so often.

>> Yes. that our technology might take

everybody's job and has a 10% chance of

upending or destroying humanity

altogether.

What has not been clear to me even as

they begin to like maybe move away from

that messaging a little bit is whether

or not they no longer believe that.

Again, I am my personal view is like I

don't think it's going to take

everybody's job. But to the extent they

do or at least they take that very very

seriously, it's like I keep hearing them

say that we have a marketing problem.

And I keep saying when I talk to them

about this

>> that if you believe the things you have

been saying and in fact the things you

have told me personally,

>> you don't have a marketing problem.

>> Yeah.

>> You have a problematic technology like

you have a product problem.

>> Yes.

>> Because people are not going to want

that future.

>> Yeah. I mean, I think I would make some

distinctions between, of course,

different companies, different

executives, right? Like one thing that's

like very interesting to me thinking

about the comms in Silicon Valley is

that for a very long time, these

companies were only marketing to

potential recruits and potential

investors. Basically, they were trying

to win the vibes on AI Twitter in San

Francisco. And I kind of feel like they

never realized everyone else could hear

them, right? And so now they're trying

to take it back. But like my sense is

that Sam Alman for a long time part of

the reason he was talking about like oh

shifting the balance of power from labor

to capital and like rogue AI and

whatever was also because he was winning

points among people who he wanted to

work at open AI and he had to

communicate that he was as agi pill as

them. He was as worried about the same

safety things as them and now that his

interest is more in political goodwill

and IPOing and things like that he's

sort of changed his tune. Um, I think

that, yeah, I I'm I'm not sure to what

extent every AI industry actor has

always believed the things that they've

warned about.

>> I think people can believe things they

don't feel, if that makes sense.

>> And I think a lot of people in the eye

industry are in a culture and inside

arguments where

this set of outcomes feels very real,

right? Uh or or looks very real. And so

I think they believe it. I think when

they make these arguments, I don't think

they're just doing it for, you know,

publicity points. In fact, I think it's

the opposite. I think when they're now

trying to move away from some of these

arguments, I think it's actually much

more of like a cynical marketing ploy.

>> Yeah.

>> But I think they often believe these

things without actually like in their

bones,

>> feeling it.

>> Um, which is sort of why they act

>> relatively heedlessly.

>> Yeah. or at least like on the set of

things they believe like this

speculative notional set of beliefs

about what might happen is way less

close to their core. Yeah.

>> Than their belief that if they don't

build this data center or get this next

model out like their competitors or

China or somebody Yeah.

>> is like going to get in front of them

and they're much more motivated by by by

the push forward.

>> Yeah. I mean I think the technological

determinism is just such a big part of

it. I think that if I'm trying to think

about how my friends in the AI industry

would react to this conversation, that's

the thing that they would say that we

are not focusing on enough is they are

so sure that there is no way that AGI or

super intelligence or whatever it is

does not get built and it is only a

question of who builds it. I think that

fundamental sort of underlying belief is

what justifies everything else is we

have to be the ones to do it. Us pulling

back, us stopping is not going to

prevent any of the bad stuff. Right. I I

agree with that and I think that's why

the China card in this has been such

like a destructive part of the argument.

I'm not even sure it's totally untrue.

Like I I am completely willing to

believe that China and America are in a

race for a economically and

geopolitically important technology even

if you don't buy like recursive super

intelligence. Mhm.

>> Um

but the way that has then been used to

not say well we should enter into

international negotiations or something

but instead just like we cannot slow

down whatsoever no matter what else we

worry about or or believe I think has

been it is it is acted as a kind of of

blackmail and the thing is that it's not

bought by enough people no

>> outside of the industry but I think the

phase of the politics we're now in is