Data centers and AI are the universally acceptable targets this election season. Unless you’re President Trump.
Analysis of political ads from CNN found that data center and AI spots comprised 8% of all broadcast TV spending last month. Of that, more than 99% went to ads against AI infrastructure.
This ought to be a little bit surprising given the nearly $200 million that has gone into pro-industry Super PACs like Leading The Future. But in an indication of the industry’s political toxicity, LTF has yet to mention AI or data centers in any of its ads. Like most Super PACs, it instead mostly runs personalized attack ads against whomever it wants to lose, as this tends to be the most cost-effective way to sway an election.
President Trump doesn’t seem to be worried about getting any of that AI toxicity on him. He posted yesterday that:
The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.
Vice President JD Vance isn’t about to stick his neck out that far. He’s telling the press that people might have legitimate beefs with data centers, but simplifies these to the issue of utility bills and downplays the backlash:
I think probably 99% of the backlash to data centers has come in areas where building a data center means higher utilities and higher electricity for the people on the ground. [...] [They] should be putting power back into the grid, not taking it out. And if that is happening, I don’t think the data centers are that controversial.
Vance, ever the more pragmatic and conventional politician, is probably the better indication of where Republicans would like to position themselves on the issue. It’s notable that Trump is clashing with his own party by taking the anti-populist position on an issue. It’s usually the other way around.
The analyses and opinions expressed on AI StopWatch reflect the views of the individual contributors and the sources they cover, and should not be taken as official positions of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.