The article you cited here is paywalled, so I can’t respond to it specifically, but I don’t think the widespread opposition to new datacenters is evidence that the majority of people actually want to pause AI development or are worried about x-risk. A lot of people are opposed to data centers not because they’re worried about AI progress, but because they’re worried about land use, water consumption and electricity prices. If you ask an average person who’s protesting the datacenters (especially in rural states where these projects are being planned and fought over), they won’t tell you they’re worried about an AI apocalypse, they’ll give you some version of “they’re gonna take all the farmland and turn it into datacenters”. At least, that has been my experience, and I live in a rural state with a few controversial datacenter projects being fought over as we speak.
every single poll on AI comes back with the same result, a plurality of Americans want more regulation. You can argue this contradicts revealed preferences, but I don’t think that will dissuade politicians from campaigningon the back of a broad anti-ai coalition.
The article you cited here is paywalled, so I can’t respond to it specifically, but I don’t think the widespread opposition to new datacenters is evidence that the majority of people actually want to pause AI development or are worried about x-risk. A lot of people are opposed to data centers not because they’re worried about AI progress, but because they’re worried about land use, water consumption and electricity prices. If you ask an average person who’s protesting the datacenters (especially in rural states where these projects are being planned and fought over), they won’t tell you they’re worried about an AI apocalypse, they’ll give you some version of “they’re gonna take all the farmland and turn it into datacenters”. At least, that has been my experience, and I live in a rural state with a few controversial datacenter projects being fought over as we speak.
every single poll on AI comes back with the same result, a plurality of Americans want more regulation. You can argue this contradicts revealed preferences, but I don’t think that will dissuade politicians from campaigning on the back of a broad anti-ai coalition.