Bernie Sanders Takes on Data Centers
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What are the environmental and resource impacts of AI data centers?
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker.
Welcome to the New Yorker radio hour. I'm David Remnik. Just about everybody in America seems to be up in arms about AI data centers. Everybody except for the diehard AI boosters, the tech moguls themselves, and of course, this guy.
You have to convince your community how great these things. You can't fight it. You have to go with it. And you're gonna have all that protection and we're giving you automatic protection, but you're gonna make a tremendous amount of money, you're gonna reduce taxes. And you're gonna have something that if you don't have it, everybody else wants it.
What's wrong with data centers? Even the simplest AI queries require quite a lot of computing power. So the data centers to house all those processors are gigantic. They consume vast amounts of electricity and water. One proposed data center in Utah, just one, would need over 16 billion gallons of water a year. That's the estimate. And that's in a state suffering from a chronic drought. New York has passed a moratorium on data centers, and fourteen other states have considered similar restrictions. The anger about data center construction is rising in towns and counties all over the country. And on today's program, I'm joined by a leader of that opposition, Senator Bertie Sanders of Vermont. Now Sanders has brought legislation to the Senate that calls for a moratorium on data centers nationwide.
It's not a ban, it's a temporary freeze on new construction, and it allows for more research and more government input. It hasn't been voted on yet.
That is why today we are announcing legislation to impose a moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers until Strong national safeguards are in place.
Sanders has been very concerned about artificial intelligence, mainly because of the threat it poses to many kinds of jobs. Last week you sent a letter to the CEOs of the major AI companies. Telling them to quote Avoid disaster. Stop building machines that humans cannot control. How are ya? I'm great. Senator Sanders, welcome to the radio hour. Thank you. Back in March, almost a half a year ago, you and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez put forward the AI Data Center Moratorium Act. What led to your action?
Well, there were a couple of fundamental reasons. Uh number one, it was clear to us that these very large big tech corporations owned by some of the wealthiest people in the world were just shoving their way through uh small communities. and are doing significant environmental damage, are raising electric rates, threatening scarce water supplies in some cases. And uh I thought it was important to put out a To make it clear. uh that that was unacceptable. But in addition to that Uh I was worried and I think Alexandra i is as well. Uh that this AI and robotics revolution is moving so so quickly. It is so transformative that we have got to slow it down. It is going to impact every man, woman, and child. And I got involved in this, to be honest with you, not because I'm a uh a tech nerd, uh, but because I looked around me and I said, wait a minute, this stuff is moving lightning fast.
And who is standing up and saying, what is this impact gonna mean? What is it gonna mean to workers, to our environment, to our kids, to our privacy, to our democracy?
Why did Senator Bernie Sanders introduce a nationwide data‑center moratorium?
Uh what is it gonna mean in in terms of the possibility of an existential threat if AI becomes smarter than human beings? So I'm asking these questions. I'm reading stuff, I'm talking to people, and I go down to the floor of the Senate, virtually no serious discussion. So I think the most important point is slow it down. We've got to make AI and robotics work for ordinary people, not just to make Elon Musk consider Zuckerberg even richer than they are.
So the point is not just to slow down the the construction of data centers and the d potential damage they do in terms of The environment, water, as you mentioned, electrical bills, it's also to slow the process entirely. Who are you talking to? What kind of information are you getting about AI and its dangers and what you may see as its benefits as well?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the environmental and resource impacts of AI data centers?
0:02–3:55
2
Why did Senator Bernie Sanders introduce a nationwide data‑center moratorium?
3:55–7:25
3
How could AI and robotics threaten jobs, privacy, and democracy?
7:25–9:53
4
What role does the AI Data Center Moratorium Act play in federal policy?
9:53–13:53
5
How would an American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund protect the public?
13:53–18:06
6
What political divisions are emerging around data‑center opposition?
18:06–21:41
7
How are grassroots communities organizing against new data centers?
21:41–24:37
8
What are the next steps and future conversations on AI data‑center regulation?
24:37–27:40
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