President Donald Trump said 23 governors have signed his pledge to protect everyday Americans from the energy costs associated with new artificial intelligence data centers.
Governors, companies, and stakeholders who sign the pledge agree to “protect American consumers from price hikes due to data center energy and infrastructure requirements, and lower electricity costs for consumers in the long term.”
“We know that the data centers and AI are dramatically increasing the demand for electricity,” Trump said Thursday. “It’s only fair that the cost of building the new infrastructure required to meet the demand should be borne by the corporations themselves, not by the American American patriots, American citizens.”
While Daniel Cochrane, senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies’ Family First Technology Initiative, thinks this is a step in the right direction, he doubts the pledge will be enough to quell the rising sentiment against data centers for AI.
Seven in 10 Americans oppose the construction of data centers in their community, according to a May 13 Gallup poll. Nearly half are strongly opposed.
Opponents of the rapid buildout of data centers reportedly held 142 protests across 42 states on Saturday.
Some public officials are taking action. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, announced a one-year pause on data center construction in her state.
“The bigger point is that the public opposition to data centers in general goes beyond just their localized impacts,” Cochrane told the Daily Signal. “It really goes to the public’s growing concern that AI as a technology, and the companies behind it, are diminishing human agency.”
It’s critical to recognize “the public’s larger resentment and concern with technology as a force and larger economic, social phenomenon,” Cochrane said.
He said the question remains of how the pledge will prevent households and small businesses from bearing the brunt of higher prices when data centers begin operation, before their generation capacity is supplying additional energy to the grid.
“The companies say they’ll pay for additional generation capacity, but the generation capacity takes another five years to come online between the time that the data center actually begins operation and the time that their generation capacity is supplying additional energy to the grid,” Cochrane said. “Well, in the interim, who’s covering the costs of that?”
Nathan Leamer, executive director of the pro-AI advocacy group Build American AI, thinks blue-state policies, not data centers, are to blame for high electricity prices.
“President Trump is doing the right thing, which is thinking creatively about how to protect ratepayers across the country, including in states where bad energy policies are leading to increased energy and electricity prices as as our nation relies more on electricity and energy,” Leamer told the Daily Signal.
Brendan Steinhauser, CEO of The Alliance for Secure AI, thinks the ratepayer protection plan will help some with anti-data center sentiment, but concerns remain.
“The concerns are not just about energy and water, they’re about the nature of the technology itself,” he told the Daily Signal. “There’s still a lot of questions there. I think this is good policy, good politics. But I think the president and governors around the country are going to have to do more to kind of get at the crux of the matter regarding AI.”
Politicians must do more to calm people’s fears about the catastrophic risks associated with AI, Steinhauser said. He thinks Vice President JD Vance has done the best job addressing concerns about jobs and the economy.
“Bring it up proactively,” he advised. “Like we hear you, we understand you’re worried about this. I’m worried too. We have to get this right.”
Continue reading...
[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
