Lawmakers push for AI data center moratoriums as more states consider projects; Deseret News, May 15, 2026

 Cami Mondeaux , Deseret News; Lawmakers push for AI data center moratoriums as more states consider projects

"A pair of progressive lawmakers in Congress are teaming up to push for a moratorium on the construction of AI data centers until nationwide safeguards are put in place — dividing members of their party as more states consider projects of their own. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introduced the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Data Center Moratorium Act in March, seeking a federal suspension of data center construction until national protections are put in place. Those protections, they say, should include assurances that the economic gains of centers will benefit workers rather than just Big Tech owners, the centers will not increase electricity or utility prices, or that construction will not harm surrounding communities or the environment.

AI and robotics are creating the most sweeping technological revolution in the history of humanity. The scale, scope and speed of that change is unprecedented,” Sanders said in a statement at the time. “Bottom line: We cannot sit back and allow a handful of billionaire Big Tech oligarchs to make decisions that will reshape our economy, our democracy and the future of humanity. We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue.”...

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia called the proposal “idiocy” when asked about a federal moratorium during an Axios summit in March. Warner warned that putting a pause on data center projects in the United States would only give adversarial nations such as China an advantage...

The debate comes as more states consider their own projects, including Utah, which just approved the construction of an AI data center in Box Elder County. That project has elicited widespread protests and pushback from opponents who worry the facility would threaten water resources in the area, particularly with the shrinking Great Salt Lake."

A Michigan farm town voted down plans for a giant OpenAI-Oracle data center. Weeks later, construction began The AI boom is coming for rural America. Inside one town’s effort to fight back; Fortune, May 6, 2026

Sharon Goldman, Fortune; A Michigan farm town voted down plans for a giant OpenAI-Oracle data center. Weeks later, construction began The AI boom is coming for rural America. Inside one town’s effort to fight back

A town of 7,000 planned so many data centers, it’s like adding 51 Walmarts; The Washington Post, April 26, 2026

Tim Craig, The Washington Post ; A town of 7,000 planned so many data centers, it’s like adding 51 Walmarts

"Throughout Archbald, a northeastern Pennsylvania town of 7,000 people tucked in a valley near the Pocono Mountains, residents are asking similar questions as the community emerges as one of the latest frontiers in the nation’s increasingly chaotic battles over data centers.

Developers plan to build six of the sprawling campuses in Archbald to power the demand for artificial intelligence, eventually covering about 14 percent of the town’s land. Those campuses would include 51 data warehouses — each about the size of a Walmart Supercenter — including seven buildings encompassing more than a million square feet near Bachak’s home...

Three of the four council members who resigned have now been replaced by data center opponents, with one seat still vacant.

It could be months or years before any data centers are built in Archbald. Once plans are approved by the local planning board, state and local permits are needed before construction can start...

Larry West, a local activist and new borough council member, said the tree cutting revived the “wounds” and “hidden scars” in a community where it took decades for the coal dust to be cleared. The town’s trees, West noted, cover abandoned mines.

“Now, it’s happening again but this time it’s data centers,” he added.

Bachak also believes his property will never be the same, even if the Project Gravity site is never completed. He recently installed blinds on his enclosed patio in an attempt to dull the pain he felt whenever he looked out at what used to be the forest lining his backyard.

“No one wants this,” Bachak said, “except the people making money off it.”"

The three realities of AI; Axios, April 13, 2026

Ina Fried , Axios; The three realities of AI

"Three distinct camps are forming around AI: power users, doubters and resisters.

Why it matters: AI isn't just advancing — it's fragmenting how people see the world.

The big picture: The disconnect is showing up everywhere — from job-loss fears to data center protests to actual violence.

Doubters still see AI as glitchy chatbots and viral fails. They aren't using its full capabilities.

Power users run AI agents around the clock, trading tips on how to automate work and decision-making. 

Resisters understand AI, think they know where it's headed and want no part of it."

Is AI the greatest art heist in history?; The Guardian, April 12, 2026

Molly Crabapple, The Guardian; Is AI the greatest art heist in history? 

New technologies of reproduction are plundering the art world – and getting away with it

"In 2026, its easy to see why generative AI is bad. The internet has nicknamed its excretions “slop”. The CEOs of AI companies prance about on stage like supervillains, bragging that their products will eliminate vast swathes of work. Generative AI requires sacrificing the world’s water to feed its hideous data centres. Around the globe, chatbots induce schizophrenic delusions and urge teens to kill themselves – all while turning users brains to mush.

Who could have predicted this? Artists, that’s who...

When tech boosters want to demonise resistance, they invoke the luddites. By their telling, the luddites were primitive idiots, who smashed machines they were too stupid to understand. History though, tells a different story. As recounted by Brian Merchant’s sublime work Blood in the Machine, luddites were skilled artisans, fighting for their way of life against the “satanic mills” – textile sweatshops powered by child semi-slaves. Forbidden from unionising, luddites smashed machines as a protest tactic. And they did not lose to the inevitable march of progress. They lost to physical force. The government called in troops, and the luddites were either executed or shipped to penal colonies in Australia.

Artists too are fighting for a way of life. And if we are too disorganised to triumph, that will be everyone’s loss. AI companies’ inappropriate scraping may have started with the work of illustrators like me, but it has grown to encompass everything else. It extends to the billions of dollars that these companies squander each year, to the carbon they burn, to the rare minerals in their chips, to the land on which their data centres sit, to culture, education, sanity and our very imaginations. In return for the entirety of the human and non-human world, the tech lords can only offer us dystopia. Their fantasy future contains neither meaningful work nor real communities, just robots chattering to each other, leaving nothing for us."

Seminole Nation Becomes First Indigenous Group to Ban Planet-Cooking Data Centers From Its Land; Futurism, March 28, 2026

Joe Wilkins, Futurism; Seminole Nation Becomes First Indigenous Group to Ban Planet-Cooking Data Centers From Its Land

"The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma just became the first Indigenous nation to officially ban data center construction from lands under its jurisdiction. 

After a tech startup approached Seminole leaders asking to allow a data center on their lands, the Tribal Council voted 24 to 0 to enact a “moratorium on the advancement of generative artificial intelligence technology and hyperscale data center development within the Seminole Nation and within tribal lands and territories,” Native News Online reported."

Mother and Daughter Rejected $26M Offer to Sell Farmland to Build 2,000-Acre Data Center, but Say Others Haven’t; People, March 26, 2026

Karla Marie Sanford

Karla Marie Sanford

Karla Marie Sanford has contributed to PEOPLE since 2026. Her work has previously appeared on the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and New York Times.

PEOPLE EDITORIAL GUIDELINES, 

, People ; Mother and Daughter Rejected $26M Offer to Sell Farmland to Build 2,000-Acre Data Center, but Say Others Haven’t

“They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we’re not,” said Ida Huddleston, 82

"A Kentucky mother and daughter are continuing to open up about their decision to keep their farmland rather than accept a multi-million payout that could pave the way for a data center, which may still be happening anyway.

“My grandfather and great-grandfather and a whole bunch of family have all lived here for years, paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it,” Delsia Bare told CBS affiliate WKRC. “Even raised wheat through the Depression and kept bread lines up in the United States of America when people didn’t have anything else.”

Bare and her 82-year-old mom Ida Huddleston own hundreds of acres of farmland outside Maysville, according to WKRC. Together, the two have rejected over $26 million to sell part of the farmland to an undisclosed Fortune 100 company."

White House Unveils A.I. Policy Aimed at Blocking State Laws; The New York Times, March 20, 2026

 Cecilia Kang, The New York Times; White House Unveils A.I. Policy Aimed at Blocking State Laws

The Trump administration on Friday released new guidelines for federal legislation on the technology, recommending some safeguards for children and consumer protections for energy costs.

"The White House on Friday released policy guidelines that called for blocking state laws regulating artificial intelligence, while also recommending some safeguards for children and consumer protections for energy costs.

Dozens of states have passed laws in recent months to regulate A.I., which has created concerns about the technology’s potential to steal jobs, push up energy prices and threaten national security. But President Trump has made clear U.S. companies should have mostly free rein in a global race to dominate the technology.

On Friday, the White House called on Congress to pass federal A.I. legislation to override the state laws. Among the Trump administration’s suggested measures, Congress would streamline the process for building data centers, the warehouses full of computers that power A.I. The framework also proposed guardrails to prevent the government from using the technology for censorship, as well as mandating A.I.-related work force training."

Microsoft AI CEO predicts 'most, if not all' white-collar tasks will be automated by AI within 18 months; Business Insider, February 12, 2026

 Lloyd Lee and Kelsey Vlamis, Business Insider; Microsoft AI CEO predicts 'most, if not all' white-collar tasks will be automated by AI within 18 months

[Kip Currier: Microsoft AI Chief Mustafa Suleyman's assertion that AI will be performing "most, if not all" white-collar  tasks within 12 to 18 months raises lots of questions, like:

• Is this forecast accurate or AI hype?
• As individuals and societies, do we want AI to displace human workers? Who has decided that this is "a good thing"?
• What are the spiritual implications of this revolutionary transformation of our world?
• What are the implications of such changes for the physical and mental well-being of children, young people, and adults?
• What are the short-term and long-term cognitive impacts of AI use?
• How will marginalized persons around the globe be affected by such radical employment changes? How will the Global South be impacted?
• What are the implications for income disparities and wealth concentration?
• In what ways will culture, the arts, science, medicine, and research be influenced?
• What are the impacts on education, life-long learning, and professional development?
• How will the environment, diminishing resources like water, and climate change be influenced by this employment forecast?
• In what ways will AI proliferation impact people in need and the fauna and flora of the world, particularly vulnerable organisms and ecosystems?
• How will monies and resources spent on AI data centers create new environmental justice communities and exacerbate inequities in existing ones?
• What are the implications for democracy, human rights, and civil liberties, like privacy, data agency, free expression, intellectual freedom, and access to accurate, uncensored information?
• Do you trust AI to do the white-collar jobs that humans have done? 
• Are Microsoft and Suleyman disinterested parties? Microsoft has major self-interest in hyping AI enterprise products that Microsoft will be charging users to adopt and license.
• If Suleyman's claim is accurate, or even is accurate but in a longer time period than 12 to 18 months, what kinds of oversight, regulations, and ethical guardrails are needed/desired?]

[Excerpt]

"Mustafa Suleyman, the Microsoft AI chief, said in an interview with the Financial Times that he predicts most, if not every, task in white-collar fields will be automated by AI within the next year or year and a half.

"I think that we're going to have a human-level performance on most, if not all, professional tasks," Suleyman said in the interview that was published Wednesday. "So white-collar work, where you're sitting down at a computer, either being a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person — most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.""

Memory loss: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise; NPR, December 28, 2025

John Ruwitch , NPR; Memory loss: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

"The world has a memory problem, thanks to artificial intelligence.

The explosion in AI-related cloud computing and data centers has led to so much demand for certain types of memory chips that now there's a shortage. The imbalance is expected to start affecting prices of all sorts of products powered by technology...

The chips are known as RAM, or random access memory, and are crucial to making sure that things like smartphones, computers and game consoles run smoothly. Chips allow you to keep multiple tabs open in browsers, for instance, or watch videos without them being choppy...

AI data centers require huge amounts of memory to accompany their cutting-edge graphics processing unit (GPU) microprocessors that train and operate AI models."

Americans Hate AI. Which Party Will Benefit?; Politico, December 28, 2025

CALDER MCHUGH, Politico; Americans Hate AI. Which Party Will Benefit?

"There is a massive, growing opportunity for Democrats to tap into rising anxiety, fear and anger about the havoc AI could wreak in people’s lives, they say, on issues from energy affordability to large-scale job losses, and channel it toward a populist movement — and not doing it, or not doing it strongly enough, will hurt the party...

There is hardly any issue that polls lower than unchecked AI development among Americans. Gallup polling showed that 80 percent of American adults think the government should regulate AI, even if it means growing more slowly. Pew, meanwhile, ran a study that showed only 17 percent of Americans think AI will have a positive impact on the U.S. over the next 20 years. Even congressional Democrats, at a record low 18 percent approval, beat that out, according to Quinnipiac.

“It’s not just the working class [that’s hurting]. It’s the middle class. It’s the upper middle class,” said Morris Katz, a strategist who has worked with incoming New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner and Nebraska independent Dan Osborn, among others. “We’re really headed towards a point in which it feels like we will all be struggling, except for 12 billionaires hiding out in a wine cave somewhere.”"

Bernie Sanders calls for pause in AI development: ‘What are they gonna do when people have no jobs?’; The Independent, December 28, 2025

John Bowden  , The Independent; Bernie Sanders calls for pause in AI development: ‘What are they gonna do when people have no jobs?’

Senator’s warnings come as Trump renews calls to ban states from regulating AI

"“This is the most consequential technology in the history of humanity... There’s not been one single word of serious discussion in Congress about that reality,” said the Vermont senator.

Sanders added that while tech billionaires were pouring money into AI development, they were doing so with the aim of enriching and empowering themselves while ignoring the obvious economic shockwaves that would be caused by the widespread adoption of the technology.

“Elon Musk. [Mark] Zuckerberg. [Jeff] Bezos. Peter Thiel... Do you think they’re staying up nights worrying about working people?” Sanders said. “What are they gonna do when people have no jobs?"

The AI spending frenzy is so huge that it makes no sense; The Washington Post, November 7, 2025

 Shira Ovide, The Washington Post; The AI spending frenzy is so huge that it makes no sense

" In just the past year, the four richest companies developing AI — Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta — have spent roughly $360 billion combined for big-ticket projects, which included building AI data centers and stuffing them with computer chips and equipment, according to my analysis of financial disclosures.

(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

That same amount of money could pay for about four years’ worth of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal government program that distributes more than $90 billion in yearly food assistance to 42 million Americans. SNAP benefits are in limbo for now during the government shutdown...

Eight of the world’s top 10 most valuable companies are AI-centric or AI-ish American corporate giants — Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Broadcom, Meta and Tesla. That’s according to tallies from S&P Global Market Intelligence based on the total price of the companies’ stock held by investors."

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."