The mid-terms are over and democrats were big winners in many races. But Republicans aren’t the only losers in the elections. Data centers lost too – big.

As discussed by Cecilia Kang and Sophia June in The New York Times (Voters Rejected A.I. in the Midterms. Now Comes an Era of Scrutiny., available here), voters on Tuesday slammed the brakes on data centers and swept in governors and legislators who have promised to protect individuals from threats posed by AI.

In 40 out of 41 local ballot initiatives across the country — more than half of them in Ohio — citizens voted to limit or prevent data center development. Governors and congressional candidates who ran on anti-tech platforms in Texas, Ohio, Georgia and other states prevailed. And senior Democrats immediately promised to swing a hammer on the industry.

“Expect a tsunami of new rules and oversight,” said Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank.

The Republican-led Congress and White House have done little to regulate the A.I. industry over the past two years as fears escalated over the safety of advanced models, the technology’s risks of obliterating jobs and even existential threats of A.I.’s ability to end humanity.

But the hands-off approach stoked broad anger. Communities across the nation protested the building of giant, energy-hogging data centers near their homes and reluctance by Republican leadership to impose A.I. safety rules.

A.I. technology — and the companies behind it — has helped fuel the economy in recent years. Data centers make up a large portion of U.S. construction spending, and tech stocks have driven much of the gains in the stock market.

But polls before Tuesday showed that data centers were broadly unpopular (stories like this didn’t help). Voters also expressed anxiety over how A.I. would affect jobs and safety. Even though A.I. wasn’t the top concern, promises to slow data center development and to build guardrails for safer development of A.I. models resonated.

As noted in the article, starting next year, the Democratic-led Congress plans to introduce many A.I. bills over the safety of the most powerful large language models, protections for the labor force and copyrights, and regulations to protect children from chatbots. (Even if the bills pass both chambers, Mr. Trump is expected to veto any that could slow down the industry’s growth.)

The article has a lot more to say on the topic if you want to check it out – my focus here is on the impact to AI, not politics in general (we have more than enough people talking about that 😉). Republicans aren’t the only losers in the elections. Data centers lost too. Will AI lose as well? We’ll see.

Want a positive note to end this post that everyone can be happy about? We’re done with political ads (and all other forms of political promotions, including signs in yards, texts from candidates imploring us to vote, etc.) – at least until next year. 😊

So, what do you think? Will the votes limiting data center development impact the growth of AI in the US? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using ChatGPT, using the term “downcast robot holding a sign that says ‘Vote for Data Centers!’”.

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