CHLOE JAD , Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; As data center backlash grows, residents in Forward Township beg leaders to ‘please, please hear us’
"In town halls and community centers across the country, residents are banding together to voice their opposition as tech and business leaders make their plans, anticipating the computational demand for artificial intelligence and attempting to sell their data center projects to borough councils and township residents."
JESSICA STILLMAN, Inc.; My Tiny Hometown Library Put on a ‘Bye Bye AI’ Event and the Internet Went Nuts: When a tiny small town library tech workshop can go viral, you know the AI backlash is really gathering steam.
"The internet goes wild for ‘Bye Bye AI’
If Chatham is sleepy, the nearby hamlet of North Chatham is downright comatose. It basically consists of a single street lined with tidy homes and a white clapboard church. There is neither a stoplight nor a store. But there is a quaint little public library (also white clapboard) that usually puts on worthy but less-than-headline-catching events like quilt raffles and pottery workshops.
That is until librarian Shea Wert noticed multiple library goers were asking her how to disable all the various new AI features on their devices.
“There’s just been enough patrons asking about certain things that bothered them, specifically Gmail auto replies and auto completes really frustrate people,” Wert explained to Business Insider.
“I went to a presentation that another librarian was doing about this topic, and they had had success with it. And I was like, ‘Okay, well… I might as well try to do one,’” Wert continued.
So she went ahead and posted a flyer for the upcoming ‘Bye Bye AI’ event on Facebook to alert locals who might be interested in attending. The internet went nuts. The post quickly racked up 8,000 likes...
If North Chatham can go viral we’re in a whole new world
The above is only a small sampling of polls showing that people have an increasingly terrible view of AI. And that’s not even getting into the massive backlash against data center construction. (Which you can read about here, here, and here.) Americans recently told pollsters they’d prefer to live next to a nuclear power plant than one of the massive installations powering AI.
All of this data paints a pretty grim picture of people’s feelings. But for me personally, no number can paint quite such a vivid picture of anti-AI sentiment as the fact it can make even bucolic, boring North Chatham — which I used to speed through driving between my boyfriend’s house and my high school waitressing job — go viral.
As much as I admire heroic keepers of the public sphere like Wert, I would have rated ‘small town library tech workshop’ as about the least sexy event possible. The fact that the internet went nuts for cranky villagers clamoring to evict the bots from their phones really says something about Americans’ feelings about being involuntarily enrolled in the AI revolution."
BRIAN KENNEDY, Pew Research Center; Americans’ views of data centers have turned more negative
"Americans have grown more negative toward the possible environmental and economic effects of data centers since the beginning of the year. And a majority say they’d be uncomfortable if a new data center started operating in their area, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The survey comes as protests against new data center construction have spread, and as some state and local politicians have spoken out against data centers. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has been a vocal supporter of data centers.
More than half of Americans (54%) now say data centers are mostly bad for the environment, up from 39% in January. Half say they are mostly bad for home energy costs, up from 38%. And 49% say they are mostly bad for people’s quality of life nearby, up from 30%. The new survey was conducted from July 20 to Aug. 9 among 10,548 U.S. adults.
Just 4% of Americans think data centers have a mostly good impact in each of these areas."
Tyler Friel, Butler Radio; Forward Twp. Meeting Canceled After Large Crowd Opposes Data Center
"Forward Township canceled last night’s planning commission meeting after a large number of people attended in opposition of a proposed data center.
The planning commission had to reschedule their meeting after too many people showed up to safely fit into the meeting room in the building.
State Police, County Sheriff’s, and fire officials were all on location to inform the public the meeting could not happen due to safety concerns.
The data center has been proposed at the former Misty Hollow Farm on Prospect Road in Forward Township."
David Wallace-Wells , The New York Times; I Expected Tech Fatalism. Americans Are Putting Up a Remarkable Fight Instead.
"The data center backlash is still, like a tidal wave, growing. And to really understand what’s happening, you have to start not with the constituent parts of the resistance but with the sheer scale of what’s become an extraordinarily broad consensus.
Three in four Americans said they’d oppose the construction of a data center in their communities, according to a recent poll from Heatmap Pro and Embold Research. Local data centers were opposed by two-thirds of Republicans, whose party is warning that recent support for such projects could destroy its chances in key Senate races. And though political causes rarely transcend partisanship, this one appears to: Nearly 80 percent of independents opposed local data center projects, along with 83 percent of Democrats."
GABBY MILLER and OWEN DAHLKAMP, Politico; Data centers’ ‘oh s--t’ moment
"The intensifying late-summer backlash against data centers is inspiring panic among some corners of the tech sector — amid fears that the industry is mishandling a political crisis that will stretch into 2028 and beyond.
Those worries have deepened in recent weeks as politicians across the political spectrum embraced various curbs on data center construction, with Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, potential Democratic White House hopeful Josh Shapiro and Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers being among the latest to sign on...
“AI is going to be a massive issue for the presidential election in a way that technology has never been an issue,” a representative from a major AI company told POLITICO, adding: “Nobody wants to lose their job and they’re already feeling squeezed while these very, very rich people who are richer than anything we have ever seen in the history of Earth are making more. And I think people are sick and tired of that.”...
The swiftness and ferocity of the backlash has caught the tech industry on the backfoot, where it’s struggled to find an effective message that assuages voters’ worries that data centers will raise their power bills, hog their water supplies and blight the landscape. One result is the growing, bipartisan push for temporary moratoriums on data center construction, a cause that just months ago was mainly associated with progressive outliers like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
The split inside the tech world is not hard to find.
“Some are viewing it as an ‘oh shit’ moment,” an AI industry advocate told POLITICO. “Others are brushing it off like it’s nothing, and those people have to get their heads out of their asses. This could go south for them, fast.”"
Zoe Williams, The Guardian; ‘We’re up against forces that have all the money in the world’: Erin Brockovich on her battle against AI datacentres
"Some of the emails Brockovich gets from people near datacentres express genuine bafflement: “Why did I not know about this? How did this construction just start? Why am I now getting a notice from the city council that this has already passed when I didn’t even have a voice in it?” Others reflect concerns about the impact of the centres: “What about our resources? What’s happening to the water? Who’s paying for all this energy and am I going to foot that bill? What will the future impact on health be from these monstrosities? What’s going to happen to the wildlife?”"
Megan Morrone, Axios; Data centers become the face of AI backlash
"Only a small fraction of data center opponents actually live near one, according to new polling by a consulting firm that counsels leading AI labs and tech startups.
Why it matters: The findings by Milltown Partners, shared first with Axios, highlight how data centers have become a stand-in for broader anger at an AI future many Americans don't want but fear they'll have to pay for.
By the numbers: The public is still divided on data centers, with direct opposition not yet a majority view. But nearly half of respondents support a temporary construction ban, according to Milltown's findings."
David Ingram , NBC News; Nashville Zoo tries to halt proposed data center over animal safety concerns
"A nationwide backlash against artificial intelligence data centers has a new ally: the leopards of the Nashville Zoo.
The zoo, a popular destination in Tennessee’s capital city, is trying to block a proposed 69,000-square-foot data center from being built next door. The zoo says that the facility would be about 50 yards from some of its animals and that the noise could disturb its residents, including a leap of leopards that hail originally from Southeast Asia...
The zoo this week launched an online petition against the data center that, as of Friday, had more than 180,000 signatures and 25,000 shares on Facebook. The petition asks city leaders to intervene to protect “one of the most fragile and rare collections of animals in the country.”
Schwartz said he’s especially worried about noise from the data center affecting the breeding of clouded leopards, a vulnerable species that the zoo is working to conserve.
Courtney Johnston, a member of the metropolitan council whose district includes the zoo, said she was being inundated by messages from concerned residents. She said she had filed a zoning appeal and would ask the council to vote Tuesday on a data center moratorium.
“I’m getting phone calls. I’m getting emails. All of my social media. Text messages. The community is speaking,” she said.
It’s the latest example of data centers getting pushback in communities nationwide, as neighbors say they don’t want to live near them or object more broadly to the direction of the tech and AI industries. There’s been a bipartisan push for regulation, as well as lawsuits and opposition to tax breaks."
