Seattle passes moratorium on new data centers amid national backlash; The Seattle Times, June 9, 2026

Greg Kim, The Seattle Times; Seattle passes moratorium on new data centers amid national backlash

"Amid a growing backlash to artificial intelligence, Seattle City Council voted 9-0 on Tuesday to enact a one-year moratorium on new large data centers and study their impact. 

Mayor Katie Wilson was quick to support a ban after proposals surfaced in April for five large data center projects in the city. She said she was looking forward to signing the council’s bill.

Seattle would join more than 70 cities and counties around the nation that have temporary or permanent bans on new data centers, including major cities like Denver, New Orleans and Minneapolis, according to a databasemaintained by hedge fund Interconnected Capital. New York could also become the first state to temporarily ban large data center construction if Gov. Kathy Hochul signs a bill passed by the state legislature last week.

Seattle’s bill would place a one-year freeze on the development of large data centers that use more than 20 megavolt-amperes, roughly equivalent to 20 megawatts, with the option to extend the moratorium another six months. The city council also passed a separate bill Tuesday to analyze how data centers impact Seattle’s electrical grid capacity, water usage, utility rates, land use, local jobs and public health.

“If it doesn’t benefit all of us, we don’t need that technology,” said councilmember Eddie Lin, a sponsor of the moratorium."

The AI vibe shift is real: Why the backlash is growing; Mashable, June 6, 2026

Chris Taylor, Mashaable; The AI vibe shift is real: Why the backlash is growing

"But outside the AI bubble, a backlash is brewing, and not only among students booing pro-AI commencement speakers. 

Just 10 percent of Americans say they're thrilled about the future of AI, a Pew poll found in March; that same month, some 80 percent of registered U.S. voters in an NBC poll said neither Democrats nor Republicans are doing a good job on the AI front. That number also appears in an April survey of white-collar workers: 80 percent are straight-up refusing to use AI even when it's mandated. In the last 30 days, 54 percent of workers reported bypassing company AI tools and completing jobs themselves.

Those numbers suggest general strike-levels of discontent with AI across every industry, out there in the real America beyond Silicon Valley and Wall Street, if not an outright revolutionary mood. 

Data center protests, fueled by the 70 percent of Americans who say they don't want data centers near them, are only likely to grow going forward — especially now that they are producing tangible results. At least 48 data center projects were blocked or delayed in 2025, according to Data Center Watch, and the fight is only getting more fierce."

UCF commencement speaker met with boos over pro-AI remarks during ceremony: ‘Struck a chord’; New York Post, May 13, 2026

  Nicholas McEntyre, New York Post; UCF commencement speaker met with boos over pro-AI remarks during ceremony: ‘Struck a chord’

"A Florida real estate bigwig faced mockery and boos for proclaiming that “artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution” during her commencement speech at the University of Central Florida last week.

Gloria Caulfield, vice president of strategic alliances at Orlando-based Tavistock Development Company, made the highly ridiculed remark in front of communication and media graduates at the university’s Addition Financial Arena on Friday night.

“The rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution,” Caulfield said as a loud chorus of boos rained down on her."

The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly; The Atlantic, May 13, 2026

 Lila Shroff, The Atlantic ; The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly

"A version of this has played out before: Silicon Valley is fond of likening AI to the Industrial Revolution. In such comparisons, the tech industry likes to point to the immense wealth that industrialization unlocked. Over the long run, it’s true that the Industrial Revolution radically boosted economic growth. But living through it was another matter entirely. Many people saw their wages stagnate and working conditions deteriorate as factory owners and industrialists came into immense wealth. (Just read a Charles Dickens novel, and you’ll get the idea.) This led to riots and, occasionally, attacks on the industrialists themselves...

In much the same way, during an economic downturn of any kind, AI’s reputation seems likely to decline...

Silicon Valley is waking up to the resentment. Tech insiders have spent recent weeks exchanging tactics on X with advice on how to better sell AI. Perhaps, if data centers were beautiful, people would like them more? In particular, there’s been an effort to change the narrative around AI job loss. The venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz recently published an essay declaring the “job apocalypse” to be a baseless fantasy. “The macro story is not a jobless future, where we retire fat and complacent to our Netflix-scooters,” it read. In 2023, after ChatGPT came out, Altman told my colleague Ross Andersen that “jobs are definitely going to go away, full stop.” Now he appears to have changed his tune: “Jobs doomerism is likely long-term wrong,” Altman wrote earlier this month...

“Disruption has winners and losers,” Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford law professor and AI expert, told me. “For many Americans, they’re not convinced they’re going to be the winners, and they base that conclusion on the history of technology over the last 20 years.” If the tech industry truly believes that a simple change in messaging will quell the backlash, then they are misunderstanding the problem entirely."

The AI Backlash Keeps Growing Stronger; Wired, June 28, 2025

Reece Rogers, Wired; The AI Backlash Keeps Growing Stronger

 "The negative response online is indicative of a larger trend: Right now, though a growing number of Americans use ChatGPT, many people are sick of AI’s encroachment into their lives and are ready to fight back...

Not only are the rich getting richer during the AI era, but many of the technology’s harms are falling on people of color and other marginalized communities. “Data centers are being located in these really poor areas that tend to be more heavily Black and brown,” Hanna says. She points out how locals have not just been fighting back online, but have also been organizing even more in-person to protect their communities from environmental pollution. We saw this in Memphis, Tennessee, recently, where Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is building a large data center with over 30 methane-gas-powered generators that are spewing harmful exhaust.

The impacts of generative AI on the workforce are another core issue that critics are organizing around."