The A.I. Giants Weren’t Prepared for This
About this episode
Is there an 'AI revolt' against the data-center build-out, and what does it reveal? Sun, a technology writer, reports from Wisconsin and Michigan, where communities are organizing against AI data centers: developers used NDAs to gag towns, residents fear surges in electricity and water use, and memories of Foxconn's broken promises run deep. Supporters promise tax revenue and AI-generated abundance; opponents see a lopsided deal where companies won't even commit to staying past their tax abatements. Klein and Sun explore the 'AI populism' worldview emerging in Silicon Valley — part techno-determinism (the future is inevitable, so deregulate), part race-with-China urgency — and an internal contradiction: the same people racing to build AGI worry about the 'underclass' it may create. The episode closes philosophically: is AI an inevitable force of nature, or the product of human choices that could still be steered — by states, by communities, or by no one?