We have some bad news for anyone still intent on sitting out the AI revolution: You’re too late. If you’re like most Americans today, you already rely on artificial intelligence for myriad activities and services without even necessarily knowing it.
Like any technological revolution, this one has brought societal upheaval with it. That can be seen in public meetings throughout Missouri and the U.S., where citizens are pushing back against construction of the large-scale data centers AI needs to function.
Some of this feels like classic NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), but it would be a mistake for data center proponents to dismiss opposition as entirely that. Opponents raise real issues — environmental, energy, and quality-of-life issues, among others — that policymakers have so far failed to address, leaving a vacuum in which fear and uncertainty flourish.
Rather than trying to talk opponents out of their fears, proponents of the data centers (which include local government officials and business and civic interests across the political spectrum) should press their state and federal politicians for a regulatory structure that would mitigate those fears. Pending bipartisan federal legislation that would require data centers to supply their own power is just one of many good ideas out there that haven’t yet gotten political traction, but should.
It’s not just researchers, coders and geeks who use today’s ever-smarter artificial intelligence systems. Every time you search the internet, use a GPS map or visit the doctor, AI is involved. It’s fundamental today to online shopping, streaming entertainment, social media and countless other things people do every day.
It is as integral a part of America’s military defense today as are planes and tanks. In that sense, staying at the forefront of AI development is literally a national security issue.
All that ever-growing computer activity has to be powered from somewhere. AI systems rely on data centers — massive, energy-and-water-sucking facilities that house the servers, software and data storage needed to run those systems.
The U.S. currently hosts more than 4,000 functioning data centers, with almost as many more under development. Planned projects include one in Midtown St. Louis, near the Armory, that Mayor Cara Spencer’s office estimates would bring in more than $400 million in tax revenue over the next decade.
It also includes a project in Festus that has so infuriated local opponents that they ousted three city council members in the April elections and are currently targeting the mayor and two council members for recall votes.
Opponents fear the massive power use by these behemoth structures will drive up electricity rates for everyone else; that their massive water use will impact that utility; that noise and environmental issues will outweigh any tax-revenue gains local communities will see by letting data centers in.
These are legitimate concerns, but just reflexively opposing the construction of the data centers that AI needs to function isn’t the way to address them. This genie isn’t going back in the bottle — and it shouldn’t. Like it or not, AI is a crucial technology today. National security issues alone preclude any quaint notions of just abandoning that technology so that China & Co. can run the table.
Which makes it all the more important that legitimate concerns about data centers be addressed with transparent and consistent regulation.
A good template is federal legislation co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Ct. It would ensure that data center power usage won’t end up inflating the electric bills of regular ratepayers. It includes a provision to require that data centers ultimately migrate off the public power grids and provide their own power.
Other pending federal legislation would mandate that data centers not only provide their own power, but that that power must be primarily from renewable energy sources. Still other measures would force public transparency during negotiations between data companies and local officials, banning non-disclosure agreements and other practices that have no place in public policy debates.
The Missouri Legislature in its recently ended session also considered several legislative remedies, including requiring data centers to pay for grid upgrades and limiting their energy and water usage.
But because those measures failed this session, and the feds are still nibbling around the edges of the issue, we’re left with local officials making these decisions in the absence of any broader regulatory structure — and, arguably, without the technical knowledge that tends to come with regulations. No wonder the neighbors are nervous.
