America’s New Favorite Monster Is A Windowless Warehouse
A year ago, data centers were “the next big thing.” Experts predicted that artificial intelligence would surpass human intelligence by 2029 — maybe even sooner if Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members kept lowering the bar.
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There used to be respectable things to fear and address at the ballot box: crime, inflation, open borders, the other party’s nominees, or the possibility that your teenager would major in interpretive dance. Those were the good ole days.
In 2026, the electorate has discovered a fresher terror, one that unites the farm-to-table Democrat and the conspiracy theorist Republicans like nothing since shared hatred of airport Wi-Fi. The last time both parties agreed on something, they voted on a $7 trillion worthless war in Iran and Afghanistan.
To fear? The evil data center. (RELATED: Trump Claims Opposing Data Centers Will Make Communities Poor. The Data Doesn’t Back That Up)
Three in four Americans now say they would oppose one in their community. Independents hate them. Democrats hate them slightly more. Republicans hate them while still wanting America to “win ” and, by God, beat the Chinese.
We do not want data centers, but we do want to watch a video of a raccoon eating a sandwich or have artificial intelligence (AI) dress up our poodle in a portrait as a Renaissance Pope. Clearly, the town folk do not know how the internet works.
Polls show voters would rather live next to a nuclear plant. Let that sentence sit with you. The same country that spent decades treating a cooling tower like a death omen now looks at a windowless warehouse full of blinking boxes and whispers, “I’d take the mushroom cloud. At least I know what that is.”
The fears arrive in a tidy package, likely orchestrated by Chinese bots, so we stall, and they can get ahead of us in the AI race. Manipulated fears are that: the building will deplete the aquifer, it will make the lights flicker, it will hum at a frequency scientifically proven to ruin marriages, and it will squat on farmland that was supposed to stay farmland until the owner’s kids sold it to DH Horton to develop cheap tract homes.
They cannot see a GPU cluster, and what they cannot see they assume is plotting against the water heater for their above-ground pool.
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The fear has always been that someday the AI machines would rise and come after us. If the machines do rise and attack us, I hope I am not near a dildo factory.
In short, the hysteria against data centers has been ginned up, likely by foreign actors who want to divide us. We need to take a breath here and get the facts. Politicians are now tapping the brakes because they are spineless and want to take time to figure out how they can make money on data centers. These 80-year-old Senators do not know the password to their Hotmail account; they will not figure this out. (RELATED: China Pours More Fuel On The AI Arms Race Fire)
It will take forever for them to do anything. If data center funding is sent through Congress’s appropriations process now, it will come out in six years as a bridge in New Jersey.
Keep in mind, the topic is complex and unexplainable to politicians. Biden put Kamala in charge of it. “Artificial Intelligence” was her nickname in college. If AOC, Kamala, Bernie and Biden are all we have in the intelligence space, the Chinese have little to fear from us.
None of us is sure where AI will go. I have trepidation. I will respect AI’s ability to enhance my life when voice-to-text can understand what I just said as well as my six-year-old grandchild can.
There have to be reason and humanity in AI’s growth. To understand humanity is easy for us; for AI to discern what makes a human involves selecting four images with traffic lights in them.
College kids boo AI because they fear it will take their jobs, should they be able to get one. An academic study and Sam Altman concluded that AI fears are unfounded. I have tried to get AI to write my op-ed humor column, and it is too logical to figure out the vagaries of comedy. My job is safe. AI cannot replace the absurd nuances of humor, the timing of a joke, or the copious amounts of bourbon I drink.
A libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, Ron does commentary on radio and TV. He can be contacted at [email protected] or @RonaldHart on Twitter.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
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