By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
If there is one very clear trend in contemporary public opinion, it’s the emergence of a big and bipartisan backlash to the appearance of AI-industry data centers across the U.S. landscape. And opposition appears to be growing, as CNN observes:
A Fox News poll in July found 70% of voters oppose building data centers in their area to support AI. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll from June, 59% of adults said they’d oppose a data center being built within 10 miles of their home. And a Pew Research survey released this month found “52% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life — up from 37% in 2021,” with a large majority expecting AI to decrease the number of jobs.
