We have not yet polarized AI safety. Politicians are polarized but their base is not. US liberal and conservative voters hate AI and data centers in roughly equal amounts.
We must not allow the issue to become more polarized. It slowed climate change legislation to a crawl and we don’t have time for that.
For this reason I think we should probably quit advocating for AI safety to the left and ramp up efforts to reach politicians on the right
Thanks for the data! Do you happen to know what the data is on regulation?
I think that’s the question that was surprisingly balanced in a recent large poll reported in Zvi’s weekly about a month ago. I wish I’d saved the ref.
This seems the opposite of the truth if anything? On the politician side we’ve had Democratic congressman, Republican AGs, and a bipartisan bill, activating after the HF incident, but on the base side, what @_rpd said.
Though I think the answer might be different if we’re talking about broadly ‘AI safety regulation’ (bipartisan-ish) v. ‘shut it all down’ (supported by Sanders-style left-populists and Bannon-style right-populists, but the former are increasingly dominant in the party and the latter are completely marginalized by now).
That is what I’m talking about, yes. I think datacenters are not the important issue here, and opinions elsewhere are more balanced. Not exactly even but remarkably so, since in the US pretty much anything that can be polarized, is.
What are you talking about when you say “the truth?” Polarization on what issue?
I don’t know of polls on the “shut it all down for safety” issue but I’m not making claims about that. I agree that the fraction on both sides is too small to matter. I think it’s also too small to draw strong conclusions about future trends.
What I am saying is that there’s far less polarization on AI than climate. (And I think climate/environment polarization explains the relatively small imbalance data centers (since the left mistakenly believes they’re a big environmental/water issue).
I think both bases are afraid of job loss and unnamed societal changes, and looking for an excuse to hate and shut down AI. The excuse might need to be a little sturdier than the flimsy datacenter thing, but I don’t think it needs to be much better.
We have not yet polarized AI safety. Politicians are polarized but their base is not. US liberal and conservative voters hate AI and data centers in roughly equal amounts.
We must not allow the issue to become more polarized. It slowed climate change legislation to a crawl and we don’t have time for that.
For this reason I think we should probably quit advocating for AI safety to the left and ramp up efforts to reach politicians on the right
Dems seem to have a 10 to 20 percentage point lead in anti-datacenter sentiment, depending on how it is measured …
How Americans view data centers’ impact in key areas, Pew Research Center, March 12, 2026
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/12/how-americans-view-data-centers-impact-in-key-areas-from-the-environment-to-jobs/
Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area, Gallup, May 13, 2026
https://news.gallup.com/poll/709772/americans-oppose-data-centers-area.aspx
Americans wary of AI-driven data center boom, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows, June 11, 2026
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/americans-wary-ai-driven-data-center-boom-reutersipsos-poll-shows-2026-06-11/
Where Republicans and Democrats stand on AI data centers, Ipsos, June 12, 2026
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/where-republicans-and-democrats-stand-ai-data-centers
New Marquette Law School Poll national survey finds inflation and cost of living the most important issue; economy next most important, Marquette Law School Poll, August 5, 2026
https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2026/08/05/new-marquette-law-school-poll-national-survey-finds-inflation-and-cost-of-living-the-most-important-issue-economy-next-most-important/
Thanks for the data! Do you happen to know what the data is on regulation? I think that’s the question that was surprisingly balanced in a recent large poll reported in Zvi’s weekly about a month ago. I wish I’d saved the ref.
closest I saw for balanced was this Nov 2025 poll around “concern” …
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/11/06/republicans-democrats-now-equally-concerned-about-ai-in-daily-life-but-views-on-regulation-differ/
but trust in effective regulation was partisan
This seems the opposite of the truth if anything? On the politician side we’ve had Democratic congressman, Republican AGs, and a bipartisan bill, activating after the HF incident, but on the base side, what @_rpd said.
Though I think the answer might be different if we’re talking about broadly ‘AI safety regulation’ (bipartisan-ish) v. ‘shut it all down’ (supported by Sanders-style left-populists and Bannon-style right-populists, but the former are increasingly dominant in the party and the latter are completely marginalized by now).
That is what I’m talking about, yes. I think datacenters are not the important issue here, and opinions elsewhere are more balanced. Not exactly even but remarkably so, since in the US pretty much anything that can be polarized, is.
What are you talking about when you say “the truth?” Polarization on what issue?
I don’t know of polls on the “shut it all down for safety” issue but I’m not making claims about that. I agree that the fraction on both sides is too small to matter. I think it’s also too small to draw strong conclusions about future trends.
What I am saying is that there’s far less polarization on AI than climate. (And I think climate/environment polarization explains the relatively small imbalance data centers (since the left mistakenly believes they’re a big environmental/water issue).
I think both bases are afraid of job loss and unnamed societal changes, and looking for an excuse to hate and shut down AI. The excuse might need to be a little sturdier than the flimsy datacenter thing, but I don’t think it needs to be much better.