The AI industry gleefully sold its products as harmful to the interests of ordinary people. Thankfully, ordinary people decided that there would be consequences for that.
From The New Republic, Matt Ford, August 27, 2026:
A certain segment of American elites has recently realized that people don’t like AI, data centers, and the Silicon Valley oligarchy that is foisting these things upon this country.
One of the many blinking red lights for the AI industry came in the form of a Gallup survey in May. It found that a whopping 71 percent of Americans oppose the construction of new data centers in their communities to support the AI industry, with 48 percent of those polled saying they were strongly opposed. For comparison, Gallup noted that the peak opposition to nuclear power plants in one of its long-running surveys was only 63 percent.
Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer reported earlier this month that his own outlet’s survey found an extraordinary depth and breadth to public opposition to AI data centers. “Data centers are 43 points underwater with Republicans, 65 points underwater with independents, and 75 points underwater with Democrats,” he wrote. “Notably, local data centers are 63 points underwater with rural voters, a group that has skewed more Republican over the past decade.” In an age of hyperpartisanship, there’s something almost comforting about how many people, from all walks of life, hate AI.
This opposition has translated into electoral blowback for AI companies and data center proponents. In Utah, longtime state Senate President J. Stuart Adams lost his seat in a Republican primary in June over local opposition to a planned sprawling complex that would’ve transformed 40,000 acres in a rural county into the nation’s largest data center. Residents in Virginia, the world’s largest hub of data center infrastructure, and nearby Maryland have also ousted local officials over their support for the proposals.
Leaders in blue, purple, and red states are now scrambling to impose moratoriums and audits on future construction. Multiple state legislatures are considering bills that would repeal lucrative tax exemptions. Members of Congress have proposed a wave of new bills to halt data center construction, impose new environmental and energy restrictions on them, and/or tax them to offset the harms they represent.
AI’s problem is threefold. First, it is a fundamentally harmful product for American society. Second, it has been relentlessly marketed over the last few years as a fundamentally harmful product for society. Third, the AI industry’s grip on the economy and our nation’s politics is fairly brittle—at least for now.
Read more: https://newrepublic.com/article/214795/ai-data-center-backlash-inevitable
