So, there’s a piece in Jacobin arguing that data center moratoria are a “terrible idea” making the rounds on social media and beyond. It’s pretty easy to see why this makes for some good discourse; naturally, there’s going to be frisson among AI optimists when a perceived opponent—here, the nation’s most influential socialist magazine—makes a case for aligning with the tech industry’s goals.
While I’m pretty unconvinced on all but one or two of the points that the piece itself raises, and I think it seriously misconstrues the class politics of data center fights, I do think it’s worth litigating this idea. Because I do believe we should be thinking about what a broader and more engaged politics of resisting, regulating, and ultimately governing AI might look like. It’s a good occasion, in other words, to ask:
- Who is fighting data centers?
- Why are they fighting them?
- Are anti-data center movements a dead end—or a starting point?
Forget charging “actual costs” for electricity, I think we should do like tax brackets and charge progressively more per kiloWatt-hour consumed. Let industry and corpo-sized services duke it out for who can consume the least, while protecting individual/personal use as well as small business, local-economy uses from the bigger actors throwing their weight around.
Who knows, we might even be able to ensure free electricity to keep the lights on for everyone with the right kind of bracketing.