Remarkable how often you’ll read an article about AI from a “reporting fellow” funded by “AI Safety” groups that quotes an “expert” funded by “AI safety” groups and presents a favorable “solution” also supported by “AI safety” groups Not enough “” in the world

Based Steamfitters Union Local 602: "We will no longer offer our political, financial, or organizational support to any candidate or elected official in Maryland, Virginia, or Washington, D.C. who opposes data center development in our jurisdiction."

#ME02# Spectrum News: Paul LePage is “big fan of data centers” if they generate own power Second Congressional District Republican candidate Paul LePage said Wednesday he believes data centers can be beneficial, if they are properly regulated. “I’m a big, big fan of data centers,” LePage said. “I think they are going to create jobs, I think we can solve our energy problems and the last thing I’ll say is save the dams in Maine.” 

Really appreciated the chance to go on @MTSlive because it helped me articulate something I’ve been trying to get at — the “National conversation” about data centers is actually TWO conversations. And while they’re related, they’re about very different things. In local communities around the country where data centers are being proposed or constructed, the debate is basically all about material impacts. Electric bills, water use, etc. There are not people showing up to county zoning boards to talk about their p(doom) or even federal guardrails on AI. They think the data center will make their life more expensive. To be clear, they are mostly wrong about this — evidence shows data centers tend to drive down electricity prices overall, and water use in modern facilities is minimal. But those are their concerns, so that’s what needs to be addressed. Then, nationally, there is another conversation happening about AI where data centers play a supporting role. People talk about job losses (where are they?), safety, guardrails, all that sort of stuff. And they sort of talk about data centers here, being lumped in as the “physical manifestation” of AI. But when we’re pushing back on negative narratives in this national discussion, we can talk about AI’s awesome power to drive medical breakthroughs, solve intractable problems in math and science, and keep our cybersecurity and military ahead of our rivals. I think that those of us in the pro-tech and pro-innovation community actually need to engage in BOTH these conversations. But we need to do it with the right messages in each instance. For instance, in a local discussion of whether electric bills in a community will go up, national messages about how AI will make our economy run better and help cure diseases and help us stay ahead of geopolitical rivals will likely fall flat. We (and the companies building out individual projects) need to talk about the local benefits and reassure that bills won’t rise. Conversely, in national discussions of AI, the local messages probably won’t work. If we’re trying to rebut the doom and gloom about automation taking away jobs (it won’t!), it doesn’t do much good to talk about how data centers don’t actually use that much water and how they can pay for community improvement projects — things that might matter a lot in a local discussion. I’m on the side of America winning the AI race and building the infrastructure of the future. There are obviously messaging challenges for my “side” here, and I think we need to push back on the misinformation on all fronts at once. But it’s helpful to articulate the difference between what local opposition to individual data center projects looks like versus the national discussion about AI writ large, because if you try to address them both with the same arguments, facts, and figures, it probably won’t work.

Just as Congress is about to pass a federal regulatory framework on digital assets, Illinois has taken two steps back and passed an absurd tax law that violates a law Congress already passed. Not only is this unconstitutional overreach – it’s simply bad policy. Illinois is systematically driving business out of state and isolating itself while punishing everyday consumers for wanting to participate in the digital economy. @BlockchainAssn and @crypto_council have filed suit to help protect these consumers from a law that accomplishes nothing but harm. There is no winner, but there are clear losers: Illinoisans themselves.

Targeted Victory VP @LoganDobson reveals why 90% of data center opposition isn't about AI: they've become a physical manifestation of America's affordability crisis "@jasminewsun did an interview with Derek Thompson where he asked, how much of this is about people's feelings on AI or about AI companies? Her response was basically none." "Gallup had a survey out in May asking people, would you be in favor of or opposed to a data center in your community, and why not? Only 10% of people, so 90% of the concerns are not about AI or AI companies, but 10% said, oh, and I don't even think AI is a good thing." "If you're on X every day, the discussion is almost all about, these data centers are just the physical manifestation of AI. Some of these data centers being built are not even for AI. People are objecting to data centers being built for non-artificial intelligence purposes because they're data centers, because they feel like they will drive up prices." "If anything, data centers have become a physical manifestation of the affordability crisis. My groceries are too expensive, my car is too expensive, all the things that I buy have gone up in price, and you wanna build a data center in my community that's gonna jack up my electric bills?" "That is a much more likely occurring thing than people thinking, I have a philosophical objection to the creation of artificial intelligence, and therefore I will stop this data center in my community because it will slow it down." @TargetedVictory

Targeted Victory VP @LoganDobson explains why the data center debate on X is almost entirely divorced from what locals actually care about: "The local conversation tends to focus on things like resources. It's electric bills, water usage. It's literally stuff like construction of this data center will cause traffic on my route to my kid's school. Things that are real concerns for people in real communities." "But not actually the same things people on X are talking about when they're discussing broader data center disputes. When people are pontificating on X about, this is why people hate data centers, almost none of them are saying, well, it's because a lot of people think that if a data center comes to their town, their electric bill will go from $100 to $115 in a month." "That's not really satisfying from a national perspective, because people like to think that everything's about big issues that have massive implications about the future of technology." @TargetedVictory

Here is why "ban data centers" is the tech-policy equivalent of “defund the police” — a luxury belief that doesn’t actually serve lower-income and working-class communities. H/T to @SamLyman33 for the quotes.

The vast majority of G20 countries already have a regulatory framework for crypto trading. The UK just got theirs a few months ago. The United States, the home of the world's largest financial markets, is a major outlier here. It's time to pass Clarity in the Senate on Sep 15th!

Data Centers create jobs! Yes, building and maintaining data centers themselves, but also in building the stuff that goes IN data centers, in building electricity that powers data centers, and at the companies that using tools enabled by data centers